


A Bird of a Different Feather

by fringeperson



Category: Ever After High
Genre: Don't copy to another site, F/M, Family Secrets, Friendship, Gender or Sex Swap, Male Raven Queen, extra bit written by a reviewer from FFN, figuring out the timeline for this nearly killed me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 89,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27627772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fringeperson/pseuds/fringeperson
Summary: Hrafn doesn't exactly have a destiny. Or maybe he's got two. It's hard to tell. One thing is for sure though, he's going to do things his way. Well, just as soon as he figures out what that is.~Originally posted in '19
Relationships: Not Telling!
Comments: 1
Kudos: 39





	1. Chapter 1

Hrafn considered the looming school building. Castle-like in structure, with class rooms and dorm rooms, and with a picturesque village just across the bridge. Very pretty. Very white-washed. He'd give it a week before he made up his mind about the place.

Hrafn had been kept mostly out of public sight and away from the wider world outside his home since he was little. He'd been home schooled, and most of the company he'd kept had been the castle subjects (few though they were) and the local wildlife. Well, apart from the fairies, but that had come a bit later. It was all very traditional fairy tale... except that he wasn't a damsel locked in a tower, or a princess in hiding from the evil machinations of a dark fairy, or whatever else.

What he had been, was a surprise. His somewhat infamous mother had been expecting a daughter, and had picked out a name for a little girl. His father had been quick-thinking enough to masculinise (if that was even a word) the name. Technically, the name his mother had picked was gender-neutral, but it was used for girls a lot more often than for boys. Hrafn might have been a really, really, _really_ old version of the name, but it was definitely masculine. Besides, having an antique kind of name was hardly a bad thing in a place where everybody was living a literal fairy tale.

Hrafn didn't mind the mostly-isolated childhood. His dad had explained why to him – several times, as Hrafn became old enough to understand a little bit more each time he asked 'why' – and he'd had his parents at least. Well, technically his mother hadn't physically been a presence in his life for the past ten years, but that didn't mean they didn't talk. Hrafn had come to like talking to his mother less and less as the years went by, but they still talked.

Anyway, he was old enough that being kept away from everything was getting... frustrating. His dad had understood. His mother hadn't been keen though, and Hrafn honestly didn't know (and didn't want to know) how his dad had talked her around, but he was finally allowed beyond the woods and forests that surrounded their home. Being encouraged to interact with people his age, rather than just Cook and her sons, a pair of soldiers, and numerous animals, pixies, goblins, and fairies. He had been enrolled at Ever After High.

“I can't believe it!” a blonde squeaked as she and her friend walked by where Hrafn was standing, just looking at the place he'd be living for the next while. “Legacy Day happens this year, and there's just ever so much to do!”

“Totally, right?” her strawberry-brunette friend agreed with a flip of her hair. “I mean, this year's after party is going to be a page-ripper!”

Hrafn blinked at the pair of doves, little red ribbons around their necks, as they carried a white trunk, hung from more red ribbons, after the two girls. He'd heard – from both of his parents as well as some of the animals he had grown up with – about the princess effect. It wasn't universal, but some animals were more vulnerable to the effect, and some of the princesses were more potent with it. Doves, Hrafn knew, were extremely vulnerable to the princess effect. Seeing a pair with ribbons around their necks as they carried a girl's luggage for her was a first though.

So maybe he hadn't had a chance to yet, just travelling from his home to the school, but still. He had never seen doves wearing ribbons around their necks before, and he had definitely never seen them carry anything heavier than twigs to build a nest with.

And what was Legacy Day?

While he'd been puzzling over the birds, the two girls had kept walking and he couldn't hear them any more. Besides, asking about something he'd overheard from their private conversation wasn't the best of introductions. His parents had taught him manners, even if he'd only had them, the fairies, and the animals to practice with.

Hrafn shrugged to himself and headed up to the school himself, and reached the massive open doors just in time to see a giant totter.

“Ah! My eyes!” the giant cried out as he slapped a hand to his face, tripped over his own feet, and began to topple – in Hrafn's direction.

“Woah!” he yelped, and dropped his bag so that he could swing both hands up, magic radiating around and from them, so that he could catch the giant before he either crashed into the architecture or squished Hrafn. “Okay there, big guy?” Hrafn asked once the giant was back on his feet and the magic had faded from Hrafn's hands.

“I'm okay,” the giant confirmed.

“Good,” Hrafn answered with a shaky smile.

“Uh, I'm Tiny,” the giant offered.

“Nice to meet you Tiny,” Hrafn said, and tried not to show on his face what he thought of such a name being given to a giant of any size. “I'm Hrafn.”

~oOo~

“Mr... Hrafn,” Madame Baba Yaga greeted when he entered her office, hesitating only a moment over the lack of any name other than his given one. “Please take a seat. We really do need to sort our your enrolment before classes begin tomorrow.”

Hrafn obediently sat down in the available chair, half-distracted by the various scrolls that were floating around the old witch and the quills that were autonomously writing on them. He wanted to learn that spell.

“I thought my father had sent in my class list choices and my enrolment forms ahead of me,” Hrafn said cautiously. “Did they not arrive?”

“They did,” Madame Yaga confirmed, “but there are some time-tabling conflicts, as well as some... interesting class choices.”

“Let me guess,” Hrafn said with a crooked, sheepish smile. “Guys aren't supposed to want to take Princessology?”

“Indeed,” Madame Yaga confirmed. “Can I ask why that was on your list of class choices?”

“Because of the curriculum,” Hrafn said plainly. “Princessology, so far as I could tell from the outline, covers how to interact with other beings of all classes and species in a fair and graceful manner. I've been home-schooled until now, Madame Yaga, and while my parents did drill me in etiquette, I need all the social graces I can get.”

“I suppose,” the old with allowed thoughtfully, hand on her chin and she considered him. “It is, however, scheduled to take place at the same time as Cross-Cultural Reference Class, Experimental Fairy Math, and Magical Meteorology, all of which you have expressed an interest in. All of which, also, do not have a gender requirement.”

“Oh,” Hrafn said with a dissatisfied frown and a slump to his shoulders. “Well... I'm most interested in the Cross-Cultural Reference Class, of those. Do those classes run all year, or are they only offered one semester of the year...?”

“You will likely have the time to take most of those classes during your time here at Ever After High,” Madame Yaga promised with a kind smile, “but definitely not all in the same semester.”

“Okay,” Hrafn said, and took a deep, bracing breath. “Then, this semester, Cross-Cultural Reference Class, please.”

Madame Yaga nodded, and one of the quills, which had previously been still as it hovered by its floating scroll, made a very deliberate note.

“Now, Hero Training and General Villainy are also both on at the same time,” Madame Yaga continued, “but before you can take Hero Training, you have to pass Heroics one-oh-one, which is in a different time slot, if you really do want to study both. Most students don't, as they know if they'll be heroes or villains from following the paths their parents trod.”

“Yes please, Madame Yaga,” Hrafn insisted. “My family has been... well, Mother says it's all a matter of perspective, and on Father's side there is a lot of...” he paused, and reconsidered what he wanted to say. “Complicated stuff that I don't feel comfortable talking about to just anybody, sorry Madame Yaga.”

“Perfectly alright,” she dismissed, and that quill made another note, “but I am a faculty advisor, if you ever need someone to talk to about anything that's troubling you.”

“Thank you, Madame Yaga.”

“Alright, there are a few more conflicts...”

In the end, Hrafn was taking less classes than he'd expressed an interest in, but that didn't mean his time table wasn't pretty full. He had a free period from two-thirty to three, before General Villainy, on Mondays. On Tuesdays he had from ten until ten-thirty, between Chemythtry and Grimmnastics, to do with as he wished (probably start on any Chemythtry thronework), and he also finished half an hour early at the end of the day. Wednesday was completely packed, and on Thursday he again had his free period right before Grimmnastics, from two til two-thirty. He got out a whole hour early on Fridays, but had no other free periods that day.

“The school also has a BookBall team, and there is the Royal Student Council if you're interested in that,” Madame Yaga advised as she handed him his finalised class schedule. “And though you aren't taking any of the music classes, don't let that prevent you from picking up an instrument in your own time if you're interested. Students who are taking Muse-ic Class, Environmental Music, or Bewitching Song will be able to get extra credit if they tutor another student, so take that into consideration as well.”

“I will,” Hrafn promised. “Thank you, Madame Yaga.”

“Which still leaves the matter of a room mate,” Madame Yaga said, precluding any attempts by Hrafn to leave her office.

~oOo~

“Wow,” said Dexter Charming, Hrafn's new room mate, who was also acting as tour-guide through the school – at least for the first day. Depending on how their class schedules lined up, possibly for a bit longer. “So, you've never left your home before?”

“Not gone beyond the woods around the place,” Hrafn agreed. “I'd never seen another human, apart from my parents, outside of the newspapers and the mirrornet, until I was allowed to leave home to come here.”

“Wow,” Dexter repeated. “That's... that's something else. That's... really old-school, that kind of isolation.”

“So I've been told,” Hrafn agreed. “Repeatedly, by every innkeeper who's place I stayed at on the trip here.”

“Sorry,” Dexter said with a wince.  
Hrafn shrugged. “It's true,” he pointed out reasonably. “I figure everybody will get over it around about the same time as I adjust to being around so many people all the time. I'm mostly glad that my parents agreed that keeping me isolated wouldn't help anything, and that I should have friends my own age. And species.”

“Well, we've got a few around the place that aren't human,” Dexter pointed out, and made a subtle gesture in the direction of where the next generation of the Three Billy Goats Gruff were eating their lunch.

“I did notice,” Hrafn agreed with an amused smile. “I almost got squished on my way in by the improbably named giant.”

“Tiny?” Dexter queried, surprised. “He's not normally the type...”

“Oh, I'm pretty sure it was an accident,” Hrafn assured Dexter as they headed for the food line. “It sounded like something bothered his eyes? Anyway, he tripped over his own feet and fell. I'm lucky I could use magic to catch him before he landed on me.”

“You can use magic?” Dexter asked, impressed, but it was clearly rhetorical, because he didn't allow time for Hrafn to answer before he said: “Awesome. I can barely hold a sword right.”

“What kind of sword do you use?”

“There's more than one kind?!” Dexter yelped.

“Short swords, long swords, slightly curved swords, swords that are actually just really big daggers,” Hrafn listed, “swords that are so massive you'd think they're impossible to lift, swords that were made specifically for cutting down infantry while riding a horse...”

“Wow, that's a lot of different kind of swords,” Dexter said, blinking behind his glasses as he tried to take that all in. “We only learn about the kind of sword a knight uses in Hero Class. Dad calls it an arming sword, I think.”

Hrafn's expression must have conveyed the question he didn't know how to phrase, because Dexter kept talking.

“Oh, my Dad's Dr King Charming, he uh, he teaches Heroics one-oh-one,” Dexter explained, and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “He's uh, not as impressed with my showing in his classes as he'd like. Not like my bro-”

A flash of light from across the castle-teria caught Dexter's eye.

“-ther,” he finished, and sighed as he turned.

Hrafn followed Dexter's gaze, and blinked at the sight of the blonde girl he'd overheard earlier, walking down the steps from the mezzanine floor of the castle-teria, arm in arm with a blonde boy, both of them smiling and waving to the crowd of their peers who were all waving and cheering right back.

The littlest of the Three Little Pigs (generation next) fainted, and so did a few of the girls in the crowd.

“Speaking of whom,” Dexter grumbled.

“Do you want to duck out?” Hrafn offered.

“No, better to get introductions done,” Dexter denied with another deeply felt sigh. “We've got Good Kingdom Management with both of them after lunch. I mean, unless you're taking History of Evil Spells instead?”

“I did want to take both classes,” Hrafn said with an easy shrug, “but with the scheduling conflict, and the other courses I'm taking, Good Kingdom Management won out. For this semester at least.”

~oOo~

“Oh fair lady of love, I am in sore need of your help.”

Hrafn stuck his head out from behind his locker door and looked around – ah. Hopper was currently green an making an appeal to C.A. Cupid. She was new to the school the same as he was, and similarly unconcerned about destiny. Well, unless she thought some cute couple were 'destined' to be together. She was very much about following the heart, rather than a pre-determined path.

Not a fan of Crownculus class though. Like Rosabella, she wasn't so great with numbers.

Cupid, very obligingly, but without thought to Hopper's protestations, gave the amphibious prince a peck.

“That's not his problem,” Hrafn said as he shut his locker door and walked over to join them.

“Yeah, I, uh...” Hopper hesitated.

“Breathe,” Hrafn cautioned, and lay a hand on his friend's shoulder. He had made an effort to get to know and befriend the guy, despite his initial misgivings. Hopper was alternately awkward and amazingly eloquent, and a good guy. Sometimes he just needed help. “Calm.”

Hopper took a deep breath, and let his shoulders sag as he shot Hrafn a grateful smile.

“When I get tongue-tied I turn back into a frog,” Hopper admitted, and managed to get out the admission without causing the transformation. “And... I always get tongue-tied around Briar,” he said, and turned from Cupid to stare dopily at the object of his affections, who was at her own locker across the hall.

“He's also sent her chocolate covered flies and a bouquet of pond weeds,” Hrafn shared with the pink-haired, be-winged girl.

Cupid, without meaning to, pulled a face.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Hrafn agreed. “It's the froggy influence.”

Hopper's shoulders slumped and he hunched over in depressed embarrassment.

“Hey, there's got to be some trade-off,” Hrafn comforted. “You rock at poetry when you're green.”

Hopper smiled a little, but still turned green eyes on Cupid.  
“Help?” he entreated.

“You know what? I got this,” Cupid promised with a smile.

Hrafn nodded in acceptance of the girl's confidence in her match-making skills, and left them to it – after all, he had places to be and things to do himself.

~oOo~

Dexter sighed and slumped into his desk chair in their shared dorm room. This was followed by an inarticulate but clearly frustrated wailing as he kicked his feet and waved his balled fists in the air.

“Problem, Dexter?” Hrafn asked carefully. Hey, if his best friend and room mate was going to be amusingly ridiculous, Hrafn was going to be the most awesome best friend forever after, and not laugh at him.

Whatever was making Dexter act in such strange and entertaining ways was clearly distressing him, and laughing at misfortune – while something his mother would approve of generally – wasn't at all polite.

“You know how Briar is hosting a party on Friday night?” Dexter checked.

“Notices went up when she got the official okay for it to be held after hours in the Castleteria,” Hrafn confirmed. “I think I heard that she promise it would all be cleaned up by Monday before classes. What about it?”

“I want to ask a girl to go with me, as a date,” Dexter revealed. He didn't sound too happy about it though.

“I didn't know you had a crush on any of the girls in our year,” Hrafn said, surprised. “Uh, unless she's not in our year?”

“No,” Dexter sighed. “There's no girl. I just... I wish I was more like my brother, then girls would just fall for me. Literally.”

“If you sent the girls around you into a swoon, then you wouldn't be able to talk to them,” Hrafn pointed out reasonably. “But you are friends with a few girls in our year, right? Why don't you ask one of them, and see how it works out?” he suggested.

“What?!” Dexter yelped. “No! What if they laugh at me for even suggesting it?”

“Dexter, the only way that would happen is if you asked Maddie, and in such a convoluted way that she thought you were speaking Riddlish,” Hrafn assured his friend and room mate dryly.

“Who are you going to ask?” Dexter asked.

“I'm going with your sister,” Hrafn answered.

“What?!” Dexter fell off his bed with the violence of his reaction to that statement. “With Darling?”

“Well I'm certainly not going with Daring,” Hrafin said with a repressed smirk.

“You're dating my sister?!” Dexter wailed.

“No,” Hrafn corrected slowly, drawing out the vowel. “I'm escorting the lady to a party. I'll probably ask someone else to the next party, and a different person to the one after that. You know, get to know people in a social setting? Be casual? I know I don't have a lot of experience with people, but that's the advice Dad gave me before I came here.”

~oOo~

“So, when your magical key appears, you insert it – gently – into the Storybook of Legends,” Headmaster Grimm was instructing them. “Then stand, shoulders back, and declare your destiny to the world! Have I made myself clear?”

“Uh, Headmaster Grimm?” Hrafn queried, and raised a tentative, questioning hand.

“No questions? Good,” the man said with a smile.

Hrafn frowned. Either the man was going blind and deaf with age – unlikely – or he had been deliberately ignored. Which he didn't like in general and he thought was a horrible thing for any kind of educator to do to any student under their guidance.

Legacy Day rehearsals were taking up the last two periods of Friday classes. Time which Hrafn would normally have free, but some other students in his year group would otherwise be in History of Tall-Tales, Wooing 101, or Poison Fruit Theory.

Dexter had explained to him what Legacy Day was when the announcement of rehearsal time and date had gone out, but Hrafn still had been left with some questions that his room mate hadn't been able to answer. And now it looked like Headmaster Grimm didn't want to.

“Now, we're going to practice with this tiny manual of entirely reasonable school rules,” the Headmaster said, and stepped aside slightly for the Three Little Pigs.

Two of the Little Pigs were carrying a tome over their heads, the third and smallest just following behind. The two doing the carrying heaved the massive hard-cover onto the plinth, where it landed with a great  _thump_ . Their labour done, the three pigs headed back down the stairs.

“Who will go first?”

While Hrafn wasn't sure about the whole Legacy Day thing, and he definitely didn't appreciate having his doubts and questions ignored before he even got to properly voice them, he did appreciate that this rehearsal meant he got to learn the names of all of his year mates, including the ones he somehow didn't share any classes with. Whether or not he would be able to remember them all afterwards was a different matter. He'd never had his ability to associate names with faces tested before, after all. No people around for him to have to worry about it. It was an interesting mental exercise anyway, to memorise names, faces, and even a thing or two about their family histories, as they mentioned (some more briefly than others) whose footsteps they'd be following in.

“I'm Hrafn,” he said, when he was waved to the podium, “and I... um. I'm confused.”

“About what?” Headmaster Grimm demanded lowly.

“Well, I inherited some of my mother's skills, and I was told that I'd be able to find the things I'd need to inherit the rest of my powers while I was here... but I got a lot from my dad's side too,” Hrafn explained with a little bit of a frown. “And, well... I'm pretty sure the things I inherited from Dad mean I can't follow in Mother's footsteps. I know that the things I inherited from Mother kind of mean the same thing the other way around... so what happens when I've got two powerful legacies, but don't have a clear destiny?”

“In that case, as with those sons and daughters of alumni who are... superfluous to the needs of their fairy tale,” Headmaster Grimm said with greatest delicacy, “you pledge to follow your destiny, and the Storybook of Legends will itself reveal to you what that destiny will be.”

Hrafn's small frown twisted sideways as he thought about that. He wasn't at all sure how he felt about relying on a magical book to tell him what his destiny was. He wanted to figure that out for himself. That wasn't even taking into consideration the legacies he'd inherited – which he was adamant was different from his destiny.

“What if I don't want to take the pledge?” he asked.

“Then your story ceases to exist,” Headmaster Grimm informed him with greatest, grimmest, solemnity.

“Okay,” Hrafn said, nodding along and not particularly bothered. So far as he knew, he didn't have a story of his own anyway. Again, the legacy that he'd inherit when he signed was not a destiny that he could fulfil. “I don't have a story, so that's not a problem.”

“Mr Hrafn, despite lacking knowledge of your destiny right now, I assure you, you do have a story. If that story ceases to exist, then _you_ will cease to exist,” Headmaster Grimm told him, and loomed over him to further emphasise his point. “Poof.”

“Aha,” Hrafn said weakly, not at all sure how much he believed that, though the headmaster was probably an authority on the subject.

“Now, Mr Hrafn, please continue.”

“You know what? I gotta go,” Hrafn excused himself.

That he left behind a frustrated and upset headmaster, and a lot of shocked fellow-students, he didn't much care in that moment. Both of his parents had always told him that stories weren't the be-all and end-all of a person's life, and he refused to believe that not having one would see him disappear in a puff of smoke.

~oOo~

“Mr Hrafn,” came the announcement over the school PA system during Cross-Cultural Reference Class on Monday morning. “Please report to Baba Yaga's office.”

“Sorry for the interruption, Professor Badwolf,” Hrafn apologised as he collected his books, his notes, and stood to leave the class.

“If you're not done by the time class lets out, come by my office for notes on what you've missed and your thronework assignment,” the grey-haired, golden-eyed man instructed gruffly. He generally spent most of this class looking human, unlike General Villainy, where he was more furry and wolf-like in appearance in general.

A different class dynamic required different handling. There were just as many heroes and moral-lesson characters in this class as there were eventual villains, whereas General Villainy was almost exclusively someday-villains. Hrafn really respected Professor Badwolf for how he handled the different classes and students differently. He was always gruff, but that was just him.

“Yes, Sir,” Hrafn agreed as he pulled his book bag over his shoulder and headed out of the room.

~oOo~

“Madame Yaga?” he called as he knocked on her door and pushed it open cautiously. “I was...”

Hrafn blinked at the line-up of four other students on chairs, another empty chair, and Headmaster Grimm standing behind the other students as Madame Yaga floated off to one side.

“Summoned?” he finished.

“Hrafn, take a seat,” Madame Yaga invited, and gestured to the empty chair with one long-fingered hand. “As a faculty advisor, it's my job to speak with the, um...” she hesitated nervously, and looked over her shoulder at the headmaster.

“Troubled students,” Headmaster Grimm finished, a frown on his face.

Hrafn matched the headmaster's frown with one of his own. The man had said 'troubled', but the tone implied 'troublesome'. Hrafn was deeply suspicious that this, whatever it was supposed to be, was the Headmaster's reaction to Hrafn's actions at the Legacy Day rehearsals. Both of his parents had explained about actions and consequences, each in their own ways, and both had used examples from the many and varied fairy tales that populated their world.

“We're here to get you back on the right path,” Madame Yaga said with forced cheer. “I'll, er, let your friends explain.”

Oh, now that was a stretch. Hrafn had only been attending Ever After High for a month, not the year-and-change that most of his classmates had. So while he was pretty sure he could count his room mate as a friend – Dexter was a great guy, if suffering a lack of self-esteem – he hadn't made a lot of others. Dexter wasn't here. Of the four students sitting just across the room, only one could really be counted as more than a passing acquaintance or classmate.

Daring Charming, Dexter's ridiculously self-confident brother was present. They shared Heroics 101, Good Kingdom Management, Grimmnastics, and... that was about it. In part out of room mate loyalty, and in part because Hrafn found Daring's laugh annoying, Hrafn had made no efforts whatsoever to befriend the more popularly acclaimed Charming sibling.

Hopper Croakington the Second was similarly in those three classes with Hrafn, as well as Crownculus. Hopper, Hrafn had become friends with. The guy was articulate and cerebral when small and green, but lost nearly all of his cool when he got some human height to him. It was like a crazy split personality, or something. Making friends with Hopper – properly – was something that took a bit of time and effort. Worth it though, and right now, his friend was looking confused and on the verge of a froggy transformation.

Making friends with Sparrow Hood – the third fellow-teen present – required earplugs or a lot of headache-relieving potion when he was on a music bender, which was most of the time outside of class. They shared Heroics 101 and Grimmnastics like the others, but also took Beast Training and Care together, and they got on okay, but went their separate ways outside of those times. Hrafn was glad that he wasn't taking Muse-ic with the guy, as he'd heard enough of his singing (if it could be called that) and seen him attack his guitar often enough without adding class time to it.

The fourth and final fellow student that had been recruited for this whatever was a real surprise though. Apple White sat there with a look of earnest concern on her face, and Hrafn really didn't know what she was doing there. Again, they shared classes, but... that didn't automatically make them friends. They sat at opposite sides of the classroom in Crownculus and Good Kingdom Management, Hrafn took a front row seat in Chemythtry, while Apple sat a bit further back, and he took a rear corner while she sat front and centre in Throne Economics.

They had never talked, which he had at least done with all of the guys present.

Still, as annoying as it was, actually calling all of them out on it – and saying to their faces that they weren't friends – would be rude. His parents had not raised him to be rude. Admittedly, his mother had hopes that he'd be a few other things, but definitely not rude. So Hrafn sat down, and sat through it. Pointless as it probably was.

Daring was more interested in his reflection than in whatever he'd been asked to come in to say, which was normal enough for him. Hopper was himself confused over why he was there (yes, he was friends with Hrafn, but what was he being asked to do, exactly?). Sparrow just slammed a chord on his guitar and screamed “ _yeah!_ ”. Apple seemed to know why and what the meeting was about, and even though she didn't really know Hrafn from a bar of soap, she made an effort. Disconcerting as it was.

“Your destiny is really important!” she insisted, wide-eyed and smiling. “Our destinies define us and, well, I can hardly wait for mine. I'm sure, once you find yours, you'll be just as hexcited about it as I am about mine! I mean, I'm going to become Queen some day!”

She was kind of fixated on that, Hrafn had noticed. He knew the Snow White story, even as isolated as his parents had kept him. The mirror net was a thing, and even in isolation he'd had access – it was part of why he'd gotten sick of being isolated. So much to see and do, no chance to see or do it.

“May I go back to class now?” Hrafn asked.


	2. Chapter 2

He'd survived the first month of classes, and Legacy Day rehearsals. Morning of Monday after those rehearsals had seen Hrafn dragged out of class (maybe not literally, but still) so that he could have the Storybook of Legends and Destiny party-line inexpertly shoved down his throat by the headmaster, a pressured staff member, and four peers – three of whom really had no idea what they'd even been called in to do.

During the lunch period of the day after that, Blondie Lockes's mirror net broadcast came on school wide, and Hrafn watched as he chewed.

“Everyone at school is buzzing about the Royal Student Council Elections,” Blondie announced with a smile. “But there's only one choice for President! She's running unopposed – again! Apple White!” she presented happily, and gestured off-screen.

Only for the named girl to walk on-screen, smiling and waving.

“Blondie,” Apple greeted. “Just because I don't have an opponent doesn't mean I'm not going to work my crown off,” she declared. “I'll use my debate time to outline my plans for Royal Dances, Royal Fundraisers, Royal Can Food Drives -”

Hrafn swallowed his mouthful of food and couldn't help his incredulous, unimpressed 'wow', as he stared at the screen. One of the people who he was sharing the table with heard him.

“You don't sound as impressed as that word itself implies,” commented Madeline Hatter with amused curiosity.

“Well, it's just, I may not have been attending Ever After High for all that long, but I'm pretty sure there are more kinds of people than just royalty attending the school,” Hrafn said, keeping his tone as reasonable and inoffensive as he could – he didn't know if Madeline Hatter was a friend of Apple White's or not – and shrugged just a little defensively. “Shouldn't there be equal representation?”

“I'll do it!” Madeline declared at once.

“Beg pardon?”

“I will run against Apple for President.”

Hrafn blinked in surprise, but accepted that the Mad Hatter's daughter would definitely represent a different group within the school.

“Would you like some help with your campaign?” he offered.

~oOo~

“Wa-how!” Maddie laughed, and clapped her hands as she looked over the presidential campaign that Hrafn had drawn up.

It included a much more diverse range of things than just Royal this and Royal that. Events they hoped to run over the course of the year for the student body – some of which were academic, others social, and a few were sporting. Charities they might be able to get the school involved in, either by doing some kind of fund-raising or just promoting the existence of the charity. Proposed excursions for the student body to various places – in specific relation to certain classes, of course, as excursions were supposed to be educational. They even had a rough outline of how they hoped to fund such things.

All of it quickly thrown together just by talking to the people who were sharing their table in the Castleteria, and those who were sitting at the next nearest and had been drawn in by Maddie's excitement.

“Maybe you should be the one running for President!” Maddie suggested brightly.

“Me?” Hrafn repeated, a little shocked. “But... I'm the new kid. I don't really even know anybody here...”

“Hey, I'll vote for you,” Ginger Breadhouse said with an earnest smile.

“Yeah.”

“Me too.”

“And me!”

As the sentiment went around the table, Maddie giggled and raised a fist in the air.

“Vote for -” she began to cheer, then stopped, blushed, and giggled again. “I'm sorry. I never actually asked your name!”

“Hrafn.”

“Vote for Hrafn!” Maddie cheered.

The rest of the group around the table cheered their agreement.

Hrafn's face warmed, a little embarrassed but mostly touched, by the enthusiasm and confidence of all these people who he hardly knew, but who believed in him after only watching him brainstorm a campaign over the course of the lunch period.

~oOo~

It was pure chance. Hrafn had been on his way to catch up with Maddie to talk about what was involved in a proper Wonderlandian Tea Party (as part of his Presidential Campaign he wanted there to be more of those, but he wanted to know exactly what would be involved), when he heard -

“You beat that wolf in a race. How do you do it? I'm all _ears_.”

“Kitty, you can't tell anyone about that -”

“Heeheehee!”

And when Hrafn saw Cerise standing on her own, slumped and defeated, well, Heroics 101 had recently covered how Damsels in Distress were sometimes in  _emotional_ rather than  _physical_ distress, and that a proper hero would do what they could to ease any kind of distress they found a damsel in.

“Cerise?” Hrafn called softly.

He did not expect the glowing golden eyes of the animalistic growl that answered him.

“Hrafn?” Cerise asked when she realised who had accidentally crept up on her.

“Sorry, sorry,” Hrafn apologised quickly. “No creeping up on you, accidental or otherwise, got it.”

Cerise grimaced. “You...”

“Want to talk about it?” Hrafn offered kindly. “I'll share a secret too, to keep the blackmail scales balanced, if you think that would help?”

“I just... I guess... it would be a relief to finally tell someone,” Cerise allowed, and pulled out a silver locket, held on a chain attached to her belt and that had been tucked away in a pocket.

Hrafn came to stand beside the girl so that as few people as possible would see the evidence of this closely guarded secret.

Cerise popped the locket open to reveal a family photo. Her own younger self in the bottom of the picture at the front, taking up the left side of the picture behind her in a matching hood was the woman who had to be her mother, and on the right, a figure who equally certainly had to be Cerise's father.

Except that Hrafn knew that face. He saw it in every Cross-Cultural Reference Class, and for at least some of every General Villainy Class before he lost his temper enough that human features made way for fur, muzzle, and sharp teeth. Professor Badwolf.

“My family is hiding a secret,” Cerise admitted.

“That...” Hrafn hesitated, not out of disapproval for the family – he liked Professor Badwolf just fine. He just wasn't sure what to say.

“Well, I think you know my stance on the following-your-story thing, or destiny or whatever,” Hrafn said thoughtfully. Cerise had been present when the initial decision to run for Student Council President had been made, and everybody who had been there had heard his distaste for enforced unhappy endings for select members of the population. “But I also know that a lot of the school thinks that's because of my being raised away from... pretty much everything. So, uh, is there also a Badwolf son or daughter of...?” he trailed off and gestured to Cerise's mother.

“Ramona took the Badwolf name,” Cerise confirmed softly. “She's not in the picture because, well...”

“You don't owe me, or anybody, an explanation,” Hrafn said firmly, and closed a hand over Cerise's locket – closing it and hiding the picture away with the gesture. “I haven't seen her around,” he added, more thoughtfully. “She that much older that she's graduated already?”

“No,” Cerise denied, and tucked her locket back into her pocket. “She's attending Dark Forest Reform School this year. Dad didn't like her behaviour last year.”

Hrafn nodded in understanding, and pulled out a simple locket of his own. He had promised to keep the secrets and blackmail scales even between them.

“My family isn't hexactly normal either,” he said as he clicked it open. “This was the last family picture we took before my mother, well...” Hrafn preferred to not out-and-out say it.

Cerise stared, slack-jawed and shocked.

“You're the son of the -”

“Yep.”

“If people knew -”

“I'd rather they didn't.”

“Do any of the faculty know?!”

Hrafn hummed as he thought about that, mentally reviewing the enrolment forms he had watched his father fill out. He shook his head.

“I think Dad only put his name on my enrolment forms, and their marriage isn't hexactly general knowledge, so no, probably not,” Hrafn said.

Cerise was silent for a while as she thought about it.

“If you need it, I'll talk to my dad, so you'll have someone on your side,” Cerise offered. “If you need it.”

Hrafn closed his locket and tucked it away.

“I think I'm good,” he assured her, “but thanks for the offer, and I'll let you know if it changes. Anyway, I gotta go talk to Maddie. I'll see what I can do to collar Kitty while I'm in Wonderlandian territory. Maybe I'll be able to conjure some catnip.”

Cerise heaved a relieved, grateful sigh.  
“Thanks,” she said with a smile.

~oOo~

“So here we go, fellow fairy tales,” Blondie said from her seat on the stage. Her back was to the audience, but that hardly mattered when the mirror net could project her face onto the two large mirrors that were at either side of the stage, as well as onto individual students' mirror-pads. “The Ever After High Royal Student Council Debate.”

The debate was the last thing in the lead-up to the vote. Staff would count and tally votes the next day, and the announcement of the new Student Council would go out in the evening. Leaving the matter completely settled while students dressed up for and took part in the Legacy Day Ceremony on Sunday.

“First question goes to Apple White,” Blondie said. “Why would anyone _not_ vote for you?”

The mirror-cams switched from Blondie to Apple, where she stood behind one of the podiums on the stage. Hrafn stood opposite her behind his own podium. Apple looked as she always did: her usual dress, pale gold curls, tiny crown atop a red bow... Very pretty.

“Let me just say, I will preside over this school like I will my future kingdom,” Apple said into the microphone in front of her. “Perfectly.”

Her supporters cheered. This group was especially in the front few rows on Apple's side of the auditorium, but there were more than just those few, and their cheers rung throughout the auditorium. On the other hand, those who had over the past week been won to Hrafn's side by his active campaigning, were unimpressed. Visibly even, as Hrafn could see his staunchest supporters sitting in the front few rows of seats on his side of the auditorium, opposite Apple's.

“And Hrafn,” the cameras switched back to Blondie. “My question for you is: why would you run against _Apple_? Are you -” she snickered a little, plainly incredulous at even the notion of opposing her friend. “Mad?”

Hrafn had made the effort to clean himself up a bit more than his day-to-day look. He'd swapped jeans for pressed slacks. His usual rumpled shirt had been ironed, tucked, and he had a tie around his neck. He'd tamed his curls, straightened his crown, and found a suit jacket that matched the slacks. He might have been an unknown to a lot of the school until recently, but he was definitely a well-put-together unknown.

“Madame Chair of the Debate, Honourable Opposition,” Hrafn began formally. “People, fairies, giants, and animals of the student body. The two-part question I have been asked, straight away and without being given the opportunity to offer a rebuttal to my opponent's answer as I should be in a debate setting, shows the bias of the Madame Chair. I will nevertheless answer the second part of the question immediately and with clarity: no, I am not mad. The way my Honourable Opponent _did not_ answer the question posed to her does, however and in part, inform the answer to the rest of the question that was posed to me, and so I may supply my rebuttal as well as answer the question I was asked.”

Everybody, even the biased (and blushing, since she'd been called on it) Blondie, was on the edge of their seats to hear what Hrafn had to say.

“I am running against Miss White because I do not want to be presided over,” Hrafn declared. “I am running for President of the Student Council because I believe in the diversity of the student body, and that such diversity is a wonderful strength. It is not something that should be ignored in favour of only one group, however privileged that group may be. I am running for President of the Student Council because I want to serve my fellow students, and make your time at Ever After High educationally and socially richer, physically and emotionally safer, and in general a happier period of your lives.”

Hrafn's friends (and he'd made more than a few since the campaign began, so he could claim more than just Dexter and Hopper in that number now) in the crowd stood as they cheered for him. His supporters (of which he'd had a fair few before the debate began, and he'd won even more of with that little speech) added to the noise with enthusiasm.

~oOo~

There were a lot of fairy tales. Only a few counted as the 'major' fairy tales – Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella being the biggest of the big – and a lot of fairy tales had more minor roles than they did major ones. All that taken into consideration, there were still students at Ever After High who were not specifically affiliated with any particular fairy tale, and whose 'destinies' were less certain.

That didn't mean that those students didn't have major parts to play in major fairy tales. The various Charmings, for example, could belong in any number of fairy tales. For this reason, those students who weren't obviously attached to a fairy tale, but could potentially be affiliated, signed the book first. Then the students who were part of major fairy tales signed, before finally the students destined to minor fairy tales.

Somehow, Hrafn – due to extreme disassociation from any stories, so far as the staff were aware – was the first to be called upon to sign the Storybook of Legends. He was pretty sure it was a bad idea all over, but he was going along with it. For now.

“I am Hrafn,” he said when he reached the podium. He might not be sure about this whole thing, but it was formulaic enough and ritual. He'd double-checked procedure with Madame Yaga during his free period that Monday he'd been called to her office. He figured being pro-active about wanting to clear up his confusion would get Headmaster Grimm off his back about it. Apart from his having been called up first, it seemed to have worked. He'd even gone and dressed up – and not just the little bit tidier that he'd been for the debate on Friday. This was fullest FIG JAM* attire, with fur-lined royal cloak and elaborate, glittering headgear. “And I am ready to learn my destiny.”

As promised, an elaborate little key appeared out of thin air. Hrafn reached for it, but before he could grab it, the key fell into his hand. He blinked, but moved on without any other reaction except to – as instructed – put the key into the lock and open the book.

The pages turned, text indistinct but pictures clear and... troubling. When the pages stopped turning, a glass with a gilded frame appeared in the air in front of him. There was one final image reflected back at him from within. It only lingered for a moment before turning into a white feather quill.

It hovered above the book, waiting to be claimed and used to sign the book. No doubt in the blank space at the bottom of the open page.

“Why would anybody sign their name to a destiny like that?” Hrafn questioned, voice clear and incredulous. “Can I close the book, and try again for a new destiny?” he asked, and suited actions to words without waiting for an answer.

The large mirrors that were floating around the stage and podium, giving a clear picture of his face to those who sat below and were too far away to actually see his features, shattered.

“Woah!” he yelped, and with a quick gesture, magic flashed out of his hands to catch the thousands of pieces of broken mirror before they could land on anybody seated below. “Did _not_ mean that to happen!” he said loudly, and with a wave of his hands, fixed the mirrors.

Cheering from the assembled student body reached his ears as his face reappeared on the repaired mirrors.

“Hrafn did it!” he heard someone call out.

“He didn't disappear!” someone else cheered.

That's right. Headmaster Grimm had said that, hadn't he. Very publicly, with certainty and intimidating vehemence.

“No, I didn't disappear,” Hrafn confirmed, and turned from the students below and the book before him, to face Headmaster Grimm who stood, frowning, by the stairs. “And I am going to decide my destiny for myself.”

Just like at the debate the day before, the student body cheered. Though this was a much shorter speech.

~oOo~

*FIG JAM – Fairy I'm Good, Just Ask Me


	3. Chapter 3

“Hrafn totally ruined Legacy Day, if you ask me,” Daring Charming said as he picked up a few fairy fries off his lunch tray.

“Hey!” Cerise objected from the next table over. “Hrafn wants to make his own destiny, not be told what to do by the Royals.”

“Oh please!” Briar scoffed and stood from her place on the bench next to Daring, across from Blondie.

Meeting confrontational stance with confrontational stance, Cerise also stood.

“We all saw what really happened at Legacy Day,” Briar insisted. “Hrafn was all _If I can't have the destiny I want, then I'll make sure no one has theirs_! Along with accompanying evil laughter and ominously flashing lightning!”

Behind her, Daring nodded along, as did Blondie, who elbowed Dexter – a silent insistence that he should agree as well.

Rather than do that, he got up from the table and left his brother, Briar, and Blondie behind. He had a room mate to find. Dexter wasn't very good at confrontations, as made clear by his rather abysmal grades in Heroics 101. But he'd gotten to know Hrafn over the past couple of weeks since he'd arrived at Ever After High, and he'd been paying attention during that very brief moment before the entire Legacy Day Ceremony had been canned due to student riots in the wake of Hrafn  _not going poof_ after not signing the book.

Thank goodness he hadn't, really, since he'd won the Presidential Race against Apple just the day before.

“I will tell you how -” he heard Maddie start just as he left the Castleteria.

What class did Hrafn have before lunch? Dexter would need to head in that direction in order to find his friend and room mate, since Hrafn had clearly not reached the Castleteria yet. Mondays before lunch... Hrafn had Crownculus. Dexter had (to his continuing embarrassment) Wooing 101 at that time. He'd much rather have Crownculus. He'd almost rather have detention from Professor Rumplestiltskin, spinning straw into gold, than have to take Wooing 101. Unfortunately, he was a Charming, and he couldn't get out of Wooing 101 unless it was because he'd been moved up into Advanced Wooing, or there was a scheduling clash that meant he could take Heroics 101  _or_ Wooing 101. Unlikely.

“I know it's covering an important issue, and I can tell you enjoy it, but I just... don't get it!”

“Okay, so it's up there with what I'm told Experimental Fairy Math is like, and I may have spent an hour revising last night just so that I _do_ get it.”

That was Hrafn's voice.

“But follow it logically Rosabella. Say you start with one troy ounce of gold. You make it into a fine wire, the finest, only five microns wide. With just that one ounce of gold, you've got eighty kilometres of gold wire. That is the maximum length and minimum thickness it can be. Someone shows you a design for a tiara you really like, and it's going to need two kilometres of gold to make the basic shape, but the design has varied thicknesses -”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Dexter said when he finally spotted his room mate – and the princess he was walking with.

Rosabella Beauty, daughter of Beauty and the Beast.

“No, it's fine,” Rosabella said with a weak smile as she waved off the apology. “I think Hrafn was about to get a bit too enthusiastic about numbers again,” she said, and amusement filtered into her expression as she looked from Dexter to her classmate.

“So I like numbers,” Hrafn said with a good-natured eye-roll. “I make up for it by sucking with them if I don't spend hours on them. So it's a good thing that I like them as much as I do. What's up, Dexter?”

“Bit of a disagreement in the Castleteria,” Dexter reported. “About whether or not you ruined Legacy Day. Daring started it, but it was escalating when I left. I'm... not sure what you might walk into,” he admitted sheepishly.

What they walked into, when they reached the Castleteria doors, was a food fight that had definitely spread beyond the initial two tables of disagreeing parties.

“We have to stop this!” Apple declared desperately as she joined them at the door – and promptly ducked a wide-flying piece of pie.

“I'm not sure you can, Apple,” Dexter said apologetically. “Not without getting hit a few times first.”

“I got this,” Hrafn promised, and sent out a shock-wave of magic that didn't just surprise everybody into stillness, but also vanished all the food from plates, floors, clothing, hands, and hair. “Come on,” he said to Dexter, Rosabella, and Apple. “I left the food in the kitchens alone, so we should still be able to get lunch.”

“Um, shouldn't you say something about what caused the food fight?” Apple queried.

“What food fight?” Hrafn asked with cheerful blandness. “I don't see any evidence of a food fight. Do you, Dexter? Rosabella?”

“No, Hrafn,” Dexter answered happily.

“Nor me, Hrafn,” Rosabella agreed with a smile.

“What?” Apple protested, confused. “But...”

“As the President of the Student Council, if there had been a food fight in the Castleteria, I'd have to censure my peers for their behaviour, and then I'd have to report it to the nearest faculty member,” Hrafn said thoughtfully, his voice carrying to every stunned and silent student that was present and watching them. “Fortunately, as there is no evidence of a food fight in the Castleteria, there can be no punishment for a food fight in the Castleteria. Which is just as well, because detentions would take up time needed to study before Professor Rumplestiltskin's test in Chemythtry tomorrow morning.”

“Oh my gosh, I totally forgot about that!” Dexter yelped, panicked suddenly.

Rosabella and Apple winced. They had as well. Others who were in the same class had the same reaction – with the excitement of someone running against Apple for President of the Student Council, and then Legacy Day, more than a few students had forgotten about important tests.

“It's on chapters one through thirty-four!” Cedar Wood recalled fearfully from across the Castleteria. “We've only covered up to chapter two!”

“We're going to fail and have to ask for extra credit to make up the grade,” Hunter Huntsman moaned.

“And with Professor Rumplestiltskin, that means hours of spinning straw into gold for him,” Faybelle Thorn grumbled.

“Study Party!” Briar Beauty declared. “My room, tonight! We'll kick this test's fairy tale!”

~oOo~

“Hrafn?” Dexter called weakly, voice hoarse, and the quavering query followed by a cacophony of coughing.

Hrafn looked up from the assignment he was working on for Hexonomics, and blinked at the dust monster that stood in the doorway.

“Wow,” he said, and sent some magic at his room mate. “How did you get into that state?”

“Thanks,” Dexter said as the dust that had covered him head to toe vanished. “The evil step-librarians have me reorganising the entire forbidden book section,” he explained tiredly. “I mean, some of the books there look really interesting, but getting the chance to actually read one? I'd have to sneak it out under their noses.”

“You're welcome,” Hrafn said absently in answer to the thanks. Then blinked. “Any particular book? And reason? Because as Student Council President, I either need a really good reason or plausible deniability.”

“Like with the food fight after Legacy Day,” Dexter recognised.

“Just like,” Hrafn confirmed. “So...?”

“I think this qualifies as something you can justify as a really good reason,” Dexter said after a moment of careful thought. “Meet me in the library tomorrow during your free?”

“Tomorrow's Tuesday, Dex,” Hrafn reminded his room mate. “Do you mean the free we've got between Chemythtry and Grimmnastics in the morning, or the one that basically gets me out of school half an hour early after Spells, Hexes, and General Witchery?”

“Uh... afternoon,” Dexter decided. “That should give me more time to figure out how to get Cupid there too.”

Hrafn, who had sat next to Cupid once in Crownculus and seen how she decorated her book with really very good drawings of Dexter, didn't doubt that his room mate would only have to ask the cherub and she'd be most eager to make an appearance.

~oOo~

“This is so hexciting!” Cupid exclaimed as she alternately hugged _The History of True Hearts Day_ to her chest as the trio left the library, and opened it to read random pages.

The step-librarians had not appreciated the way their voices had all echoed through the library. It couldn't be helped. The library had better acoustics than even the theatre. It was ridiculous. Still, they'd gotten the potentially contraband book out from under their purview, and were now at liberty to discuss the matter freely.

“A holiday that encourages everyone to follow their true hearts!” Cupid enthused. “Oh, but it hasn't been spellebrated in years...”

“Considering Headmaster Grimm's reaction to my initial doubts about signing the Storybook of Legends, and then how he got Blondie to do that series of mirror-casts on lesser school legends,” Hrafn started.

“And rigged them,” Dexter added. “I was holding the mirror-pad, and had to be really careful to not get him in the shot – all without letting Blondie know, too.”

“Right,” Hrafn agreed. “He won't go for this. Hex, he's probably part of why it hasn't been spellebrated in so long.”

Cupid drooped at the news. She was just so excited for all the possibilities.

“Which means, if we want to do something for the holiday, either it can't be obvious, or it's going to have to be underground,” Hrafn said firmly.

Cupid perked up.

“Really?” she asked eagerly. “Could we have a True Hearts Day Dance?” she entreated.

Hrafn shrugged easily.

“Sure,” he agreed. “We just can't let Headmaster Grimm know the theme for the dance. Maybe hold if off school grounds, just to be sure.”

“Yes!” Cupid cheered.

“So... how would we do this?” Dexter asked.

“Briar's the ultimate party girl,” Hrafn reminded them both. “I'll clear the dance with the Headmaster, but I'm going for plausible deniability for this. I was asked to let some students organise a dance for the whole school, off campus and after curfew. That's it. In order for me to be able to say _it's just a dance_ , you're going to have to organise it yourself. Okay?”

“Okay!” Cupid agreed happily. “Thank you, Hrafn! And thank _you_ , Dexter, for finding this book. I'd have never known about this fabelous holiday if you hadn't.”

“You're welcome,” Dexter said with a slightly bashful smile.

~oOo~

When the delivery goose crashed through the school doors, it gave everybody pause. Deliveries weren't unusual, but everybody always hoped that the latest delivery was for them.

“I got party supplies!” the delivery goose called once he'd stood from his landing and dusted himself off. “C. A. Cupid!”

“I'm Cupid!” the pink-haired girl answered, sprinting to his side. Possibly even adding some speed by using her wings. “That's me!”

“Just sign here,” the goose honked, and held up a delivery manifest.

Cupid eagerly did so.

“Party supplies?” Headmaster Grimm enquired as he loomed over her.

“Yes,” she confirmed nervously. Headmaster Grimm had the ominous and intimidating looming thing down to a terrifying art. “Party supplies. They're for, um...”

“Our dance party,” Briar said, saving her fellow in-pink student.

“Student Council President Hrafn said he'd cleared it with you, Sir?” Hopped offered. He had volunteered to help with the party mostly so that he'd get to hang out with Briar, who he still had a massive crush on. He got to be around his crush, she got to see him being something other than frog-like or tongue-tied (he could focus on his part of organising to stay calm around her), and Cupid got more hands helping.

“So that we could hold it off the grounds and after curfew?” Dexter prompted hopefully.

“Ah, yes,” Headmaster Grimm agreed, and straightened up so that he was no longer looming. “So he did. Carry on then.”

The quartet sagged in relief when he left.

“Having permission for the sort-of-secret dance party makes a difference to the stress levels,” Briar asserted, “but maybe next time don't have them deliver supplies to the school.”

“Got it,” Cupid agreed.

~oOo~

“What? No! They can't own it!” an indignant voice yelled. “Now I'll never get my happily ever after!”

Anybody who hadn't previously noticed the couple standing, hand in hand, in the front hall of the school... well, that kind of yelling drew attention. Ashlynn and Hunter stood proudly, hands entwined, and the expressions on their faces daring anybody to tell them off for it.

“Oh, hey Duchess,” Ashlynn said, and giggled as she held up the hand that was holding Hunter's, before dragging him off in another direction.

Unfortunately, that direction happened to be towards Apple White. Apple's opinion of people deviating from their stories was well-known, and her shocked expression did what Duchess's sneering hadn't. It made the happy couple uncomfortable.

“Ashlynn,” Apple said. “You and Hunter are... are dating?” she asked, and focused on those joined hands. “But but but but you're a Royal!” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “And he's... a Rebel!”

Sparrow Hood chose that moment to actually be awesome, in his own weird way. He popped up between the couple, as he strummed a few chords.

“Totally awkward, oooh!” he sang shortly before he slipped out again.

It might not have helped the situation as a whole, but it worked in breaking the tension enough for Ashlynn to wrap her arms around Hunter's and drag him away from the worrying and judgemental friend.

“It's a bombspell, and I'm just the reporter to document the reactions to the Royally Rebellious Romance,” Blondie decided.

“What?!” Duchess yelped. “But you just said -”

“If I'd reported on Hunter and Ashlynn before they owned the relationship themselves, I would have been a terrible friend,” Blondie explained. “Since they've owned it, that's not a problem. Hey! Dexter! Hrafn! Help a girl out?” she called, waving them over even as she hurried up to them.

“You know I'm always available to help record your mirror cast, Blondie,” Dexter agreed with a casual shrug. “Well, so long as it doesn't conflict with my classes.”

“Great!” Blondie said with a pleased smile. “What about you, Hrafn?”

“What do you need me for?” Hrafn asked.

“I'm going to interview people who are both prominent in the student body, and who are Ashlynn and Hunter's friends,” Blondie explained. “Do you mind being my first interviewee?”

“Sure,” Hrafn agreed.

Blondie pressed her mirror pad into Dexter's hands, withdrew her bear-shaped microphone, and smiled brightly.

“So, fellow Fairy Tales. Blondie Lockes here to give you the reactions to the recently revealed Royally Rebellious Romance of Ashlynn Ella and Hunter Huntsman. Immediately and on the scene of the big reveal, I'm here with Student Council President Hrafn. What do you think of all this?”

“I think that it's really brave of them to own it like they are,” Hrafn answered to Blondie, then looked to Dexter, and the mirror pad that he was recording with. “Some people won't approve of them following their hearts, even when so many fairy tales are all about hexactly that. It's going to be really important for both of them to have friends who are supportive as their relationship comes under public scrutiny. I intend to make sure that they both know they have my support.”

~oOo~

“Apple,” Ashlynn said when the bell had rung at the end of Crownculus. “We have to talk.”

“Ash, this is hard for me,” Apple said as she slipped out of her seat. “Which is a first for me, because I usually handle everything so very well.”

“I know,” Ashlynn agreed.

“I'm just so surprised you didn't trust me enough to tell me,” Apple said.

“I didn't think you'd understand,” Ashlynn explained.

“I guess I don't,” Apple allowed.

Ashlynn's apologetic expression was replaced by a surprised one. That wasn't quite what she'd expected Apple to say.

“It just doesn't make sense to me,” Apple continued, turning away from Ashlynn and unaware of the feelings her lack of understanding were evoking in her friend. “I don't want to see anything bad happen to someone I care so much about.”

Hrafn, who had watched the interaction carefully from his own seat a few places down, stood, shouldered his bag, and approached the girls.

“Ashlynn?” he called over as he walked up to her.

“Oh, Hrafn, hi,” Ashlynn said. “What's up?”

“Congratulations on finding your happily ever after while you're still in school,” he said.

“What?” Ashlynn and Apple both asked, surprised.

“But, Ashlynn is supposed to be the next Cinderella,” Apple protested.

“Hmm,” Hrafn hummed, deliberately not saying what, exactly, he thought of that. The story wasn't all happy all the time, after all. Apple seemed to have a bad habit of ignoring the bad that happened to people. Instead, he focused on a few key details. “Ashlynn, do you have oppressive step-sisters?” he asked.

“Yes,” she confirmed.

“Did you sneak away from their oversight in order to be with the guy you loved?” Hrafn continued.

“Yes,” Ashlynn said again.

“Has he ever brought you shoes?” Hrafn checked with a crooked smile.

Ashlynn giggled, and confirmed that he had.

“Are you happy with him?”

Ashlynn smiled, nodded, and hugged herself since her boyfriend wasn't present.

“Well there you have it then,” Hrafn said with an air of certainty.

“But... but... but...” Apple stammered, shocked.

“Aren't you happy that your friend is happy?” Hrafn asked Apple, just a little insidiously.

“Well of course I want Ashlynn to be happy!” Apple snapped at once. “I'm just worried about what will happen...”

“So am I,” Ashlynn admitted softly. “But I'm not letting that get in the way of what I have with Hunter right now.”

“So ladies, lunch?” Hrafn suggested.

“Hey! Ashlynn!” Hunter called when they reached the Castleteria.

A couple of birds dropped a scattering of flowers, making a pathway from the girl to Hunter, another dropped a crown of flowers over her hair.

“Definitely looks like happily ever after stuff to me,” Hrafn said in a faintly teasing tone.

Ashlynn giggled and happily went to sit with Hunter at the spot he'd saved for her.

“And there's nothing to say Hunter can't still be the Huntsman he needs to be later,” Hrafn pointed out to Apple quietly. “He's not hexactly against playing his part, you know? It's all fairly heroic stuff. There's just other stuff he wants to do too. And it's not like the Huntsman actually has someone they're destined to marry anyway.”

Apple looked away, unsure. Not unhappy for her friend, but definitely unsure, and still concerned.

~oOo~

“Thanks for inviting me, Hrafn,” Faybelle said as the security troll let them into the party. “I don't usually get invited to parties. I mean, I'd have come anyway, but being invited is a nice change from the norm.”

“Hey Hrafn!” a voice called from across the room.

“Shall we greet the hostess?” Hrafn asked, and offered his date for the night his arm.

Faybelle laughed, but linked her arm with his anyway.

“Sure,” she agreed.

Briar, Hopper, Dexter, and Cupid were all by the punch bowl.

“Hexcellent party, guys,” Hrafn complimented. “Holding it together, Hopper?” he checked, flicking a significant glance in Briar's direction.

“Just, I think,” Hopper admitted with a smile that was so happy it bordered on dizzy.

“He's been a great help,” Briar asserted, and rested a hand on his shoulder.

“I- uh-” Hopper stammered as a blush took over his freckles.

“Breathe Hopper!” Cupid said quickly. “Calm! Remember, in through the nose -”

Hopper closed his eyes and breathed in through his nose before sighing it out through his mouth. He did that twice more, taking the time to think through what he wanted to say, before he opened his eyes again.

“I appreciate your kind kudos, fair maiden,” Hopper said, and lifted Briar's hand off his shoulder so that he could press a light kiss to the back of it.

“Smooth,” Faybelle noted with a smirk. “Seriously though Briar, great party. You went a bit heavy on the hearts theme though, don't you think?”

“You do know what day it is, right Faybelle?” Briar asked with a smile.

“Huh? What day is it?”

“True Hearts Day!” Cupid declared happily.

“It hasn't been properly spellebrated in years, but it's all about following your true heart,” Dexter explained.

“Dexter found a book that was all about it, which got us started on our way towards this,” Cupid said happily.

“It's still on the calender of course,” Briar pointed out, “but yeah, not been a big deal lately. Probably because Headmaster Grimm is so big on following our destinies, rather than our hearts.”

“Right, the whole Royal-Rebel thing,” Faybelle said, nodding in understanding. Then she blinked and turned sharply to Hrafn. “And you asked _me_ to _this_ dance?” she asked pointedly, eyes narrowed and accusing. “Me? Future evillest fairy of them all?”

“Prettiest fairy of them all,” Hrafn said as he shrugged, smiled, and lifted her hand to his lips, whereupon he pressed a polite kiss to the back of it.

“Eep!” Faybelle squeaked in surprise, and her whole face turned pink.

“But it doesn't have to mean anything if you don't want it too,” Hrafn assured her easily.

“Good,” Faybelle said, reclaiming her hand from his light hold.

“Hey guys!” Maddie chirped in greeting as she picked up the spoon to ladle herself a teacup worth of punch. “Who's DJ-ing tonight?”

“We got the daughter of the Pied Piper,” Briar answered with a bright grin.

“Melody Piper!” Maddie cheered.

“What up, Ever After!” Melody's voice came over the speakers just then. “Ready for me to drop some True Hearts tunes?” she asked, and spun a couple of vinyls onto the turn tables while the party-goers cheered. “Then follow me!”

~oOo~

“So, this semester I'm changing General Villainy for Hero Training, Heroics one-oh-one for Advanced Villainy. I'm switching Cross-Cultural References to Experimental Fairy Math. Spells, Hexes, and General Witchery for Good Magic Mastery, and Chemythtry for Science and Sorcery,” Hrafn said as he reviewed his new class schedule.

“No Wooing?” Dexter asked.

“Not for class,” Hrafn confirmed.

“Lucky,” Dexter moaned. “If I dropped Wooing, I'd hear about it from my dad.”

“Science and Sorcery does take away the free period I had on Tuesday mornings though,” Hrafn noted. “I don't have any other changes apart from that.”

“Wait, are you keeping up Crownculus?” Dexter asked. “Why not swap that out for something else? I mean, you're taking Experimental Fairy Math this semester.”

“It might be hard, but I like Crownculus,” Hrafn objected. “Besides, the only other subjects on that line are Poison Fruit Theory, Fashion Design, and Bewitching Song. I'll skip those, thanks.”

“Ugh, fair enough,” Dexter agreed.

~oOo~

“The mirror net is down!” came the horrified wail from the halls of Ever After High.

“I can't update my MyChapter page!”

“I can't share these new shoes I found online!”

“I can't tell everyone about the hexcellent new band playing at the Red Shoes dance club tonight!”

“Or,” Cerise suggested, “you could do those things by talking to each other.”

“Except that Professor Rumplestiltskin's online-only test is due by sunset today,” Apple said.

“Ooh, I forgot about that,” Cerise agreed.

“Panic?” Ashlynn suggested.

“No,” Cerise denied firmly, and started marching the other girls down the hallways. “Humphrey Dumpty and Dexter Charming will be able to fix this, just as soon as they know it's an issue. So we go tell them.”

“Tell who, what?” Hrafn asked as they passed him.

“Mirror net is down, and Professor Rumplestiltskin's got an online-only test due by sunset,” Cerise answered shortly, not stopping.

“Ah,” Hrafn said. “Glad I submitted mine this morning, then.”

“When?!” Cedar yelped.

“During Grimmnastics,” Hrafn confessed sheepishly as he followed along. “Coach Gingerbreadman had us doing laps in small groups, right? I did the test while I was sitting in the bleachers waiting to be called.”

“Oh, curses!” Briar grumbled. “I should have done that too!”

“Briar, you don't take Grimmnastics,” Apple reminded her best friend and room mate.

“Oh yeah.”

~oOo~

“It looks like someone's hogging all the bandwidth,” Dexter said as the concerned group crowded around him. “We need to find out who. Humphrey, you stay here and sort out these cables, while we search the school.”

“Sure,” Humphrey grumbled from where he was perched on a ladder, cables wrapped around arms and looped over shoulders as he checked that all the hardware was working correctly. “Leave it to Humphrey Dumpty to put it all back together again.”

“And I'll let Headmaster Grimm and Professor Rumplestiltskin know about the mirror net issues,” Hrafn offered. “Since there's an online-only test due at the end of the day, the mirror net being non-functional is a legitimate reason for students to not be able to complete it on time. No one will be getting detentions for this on my watch,” he promised.

“Thanks Hrafn,” Apple said, and hugged him tightly before quickly releasing him. “You're spelltacular.”

The sentiment was echoed, but no one else hugged him. The closest after Apple was Cerise, who caught his hand and gave it a brief squeeze.

When it turned out that finding Professor Rumplestiltskin also meant finding the cause of the mirror net being down... well, Headmaster Grimm was not impressed. He used the mirror net too, after all, and its having been down had caused him a couple of problems as well. That the cause was one of his professors trying to deliberately sabotage the students was not at all appreciated.


	4. Chapter 4

“Hrafn?”

He looked up from the review slips he'd been reading. Sure, students could bring a petition to the Student Council when it was sitting in session, and they could approach him any time with a problem, but having a suggestion box was helpful too. There had been a bunch after the school's Talent Show asking for more concerts – both as opportunities to perform, and to get to see other students do so. There had been an upswing in the number of students interested in Wonderlandian tea parties after Blondie's mirror cast review of the Wonderland Haberdashery and Tea Shop.

More tea parties were easy to organise. Maddie was happy to host one any day of the week, though she did insist on properly mad behaviour from all guests. Especially when holding the tea parties in Wonderland Grove in the Enchanted Forest.

An increasing number of students were becoming, if not totally fluent, then at least passable with their Riddlish.

Oh, but someone had called his name.

“Holly O'Hair, right?” Hrafn checked as he blinked back to reality. “We've both got Throne Economics together?”

“Right,” Holly confirmed with a smile. “This is my sister Poppy,” she introduced.

“I'm new to Ever After High,” Poppy explained, “and I'm not hexactly sure about what classes to take. Madame Yaga said I had to choose a destiny by the end of the day.”

“Since I got the Rapunzel legacy, Poppy can choose, but she's not sure what she wants to do,” Holly said. “So I suggested asking around for opinions.”

Hrafn frowned.

“I figured, since you're the Student Council President...?” Holly asked hopefully.

Hrafn very deliberately wiped the frown off his face.

“Sure,” he agreed. “Take a seat, milady, and I'll answer what questions I can. Be warned, I'll probably ask a few of my own.”

“Sounds great,” Poppy agreed.

“I've got to get to class,” Holly said apologetically. “You'll be alright on your own?”

“I'll be fine,” Poppy promised. “Go.”

“Am I the first person you've talked to about this?” Hrafn asked once the sisters had said their temporary farewells.

“No,” Poppy admitted. “I've talked to Apple, Tiny, and Briar, and Cerise, and... both sides of the whole Royal and Rebel thing sound great...”

Hrafn smiled at that.

“They do both have their ups and downs,” he allowed, then frowned again. “Clear something up for me, did Madame Yaga say you had to decide your classes, or your destiny, by the end of the day? Because when I enrolled, I had more classes listed than could actually fit in my weekly time table, so I had to pick which ones to prioritise.”

Poppy groaned as she realised her accidental assumption.

“Classes,” she agreed.

Hrafn smiled, nodded, and pulled out his own first semester schedule from where it was tucked in behind the one for the current semester.

“Have a look,” he offered, holding it out to her.

“You took General Villainy _and_ Heroics one-oh-one?” Poppy read, amazed.

“My parents both think I can't inherit their legacies, for various reasons, even if both of them would like it if I could inherit their respective legacies, so I'm effectively without one and in line for two,” Hrafn explained, “so I get to take whatever classes I like the look of. Same as you.”

“This,” Poppy said as she looked over the class schedule, “is so helpful. Looks like it might be a kinda heavy course-load though.”

“Yeah,” Hrafn agreed with a chuckle. “I think I've got the least free periods of anybody in the school, and then add that I'm Student Council President, and on the Bookball Team. I get it all in, but I'm probably going to have to cut back a bit next year.”

“So... I can do Hero Training and Magicology, and not have to pick between the two -” Poppy started to plan her courses.

“Heroics one-oh-one is prerequisite for Hero Training,” Hrafn corrected.

“Okay, I'll do that then,” Poppy agreed, and adjusted her course choices. “Beast Training and Care... Fashion design...”

Hrafn smiled as she started muttering classes to herself, and turned back to the review slips he'd been reading through before.

~oOo~

“Un-hex-ceptable,” Hrafn stated firmly, a frown on his face.

“What? But... it happens every year!” Apple said, hurt and confused.

“Are any other student birthdays also spellebrated with a cake baking contest?” Hrafn asked, seeking clarification.

“Well, no,” Apple admitted.

“Then it's an un-hex-ceptable proposal,” Hrafn said firmly, shutting down the proposal.

“But, why?” Apple wanted to know.

“It promotes inequality among the students by suggesting, even peripherally, that they don't _all_ deserve to have their birthdays spellebrated by the whole school,” Hrafn explained. “I'm not saying you can't have a bake-off for your birthday, but if you want it, then it's going to have to be privately organised by yourself. It can't be a school event.”

~oOo~

What was a school event, however, was the Beauty Pageant. It wasn't exclusive to people who thought of themselves as Royal, technically, but most of the school who weren't best friends forever after with the small clique of Royals that surrounded Apple... tended to just watch, rather than participate. Which meant, generally, just Apple, Briar, and Ashlynn – the last of whom had decided to give it a skip in favour of getting to know the other Rebels.

After going public with her relationship with Hunter, Ashlynn had gotten up on stage at the True Hearts Day Dance and said that, if following her heart and dating Hunter meant she wasn't a Royal, then she would happily be Ashlynn the Rebel. Apple wasn't sure how to take that hit to her world view, but the Rebels had generally welcomed Ashlynn to their ranks. And their table in the Castleteria.

“Hey, this salad reminds me, there's a sale on at the Glass Slipper,” Ashlynn said.

“How does a salad remind you -?” Hunter started, confused.

“You're cute,” Ashlynn cut him off with a smile. “Anyone want to come shopping after school today?”

“I'm in,” Cerise agreed, and Maddie nodded along.

“Oh, I can't!” Cedar said as she sprung out of her seat, distressed. “I entered the Royal's Beauty Pageant, but I didn't want to tell you guys, 'cause I thought you'd think it's silly, but I love spellebrating being awesome empowered girls!”

“Doesn't sound silly to me,” Hrafn offered.

“You're going to be a bit disappointed though,” Ashlynn warned cautiously. “Mrs Her Majesty the White Queen presents it, and it's more about the importance of beauty, rather than what it means to be beautiful.”

“No wonder Apple's won every year for so long then,” Cerise quipped. “If there's anybody in this school who has _being beautiful_ figured out, then it's her. Well, and Daring.”

“So... should I not bother?” Cedar asked, concerned.

“You have a reason for wanting to participate,” Hrafn reminded her. “So what if the pageant isn't what you thought it was? Make it be.”

“Yeah!” Maddie cheered.

“You should,” Ashlynn agreed.

Cerise nodded along, having just taken a bite out of her burger.

“Thanks guys,” Cedar said.

~oOo~

“Mr Hrafn, stay behind a moment please?” the teacher requested as the bell rang.

“Yes, Mrs Her Majesty the White Queen,” Hrafn agreed.

For a Wonderlandian, Mrs Her Majesty the White Queen came across as pretty normal to most of the student body, at least, compared to certain other Wonderlandians who had taken up residence in Ever After. She never spoke in Riddlish, she didn't disappear leaving only her smile behind, didn't play pranks, and she never spoke of beheading. She was, however, very particular about how she was addressed.

“I need some judges for the Beauty Pageant,” Mrs Her Majesty the White Queen informed him with a smile. “I want a panel of at least three. Would you be willing to be involved?”

“Certainly, Mrs Her Majesty the White Queen,” Hrafn agreed. “I'd love to. May I ask who else you want to have judge?”

“Well, I'll obviously be asking Daring Charming,” she said, “though I'm unsure as to whether or not I ought to approach Dexter Charming as well. I had also thought of asking Mr Croakington.”

“I'm sure both of them would also be happy to take up the office, Mrs Her Majesty the White Queen,” Hrafn assured her easily.

She nodded, and dismissed him to his lunch.

~oOo~

“And now, we will hear on the topic from our last contestant, Cedar Wood,” Mrs Her Majesty the White Queen said as Briar stepped back from the microphone. “Miss Wood, what is your answer to the debate topic: why is looking good more important than anything?”

Cedar took a deep, calming breath, and stepped up to the microphone.

“When I was preparing my answer to this debate topic, I will admit that I had some trouble with it,” Cedar began. “Then my room mate reminded me that in a debate, you don't have to agree with the subject. I could make rebuttals and counter-arguments. That was the point of a debate: to get different perspectives on a subject, not only one. So while my fellow contestants have made excellent points in favour of the subject, I would like to take this opportunity to counter them.”

Apple was shocked, visibly. She had spoken very passionately in favour of the subject they had been given. Briar was more curious than shocked, and looked like she was listening intently – and prepared to agree, if Cedar spoke well enough.

“Looking good is not more important than a lot of things,” Cedar asserted, “and being beautiful is about more than just looking good. Being beautiful comes from the heart, from living every day as your best self, and from helping those around you to do the same. Whether you're the fairest of them all, a wicked queen in the making, or even a troll. In your own enchanting way, you can find your own beauty. What does merely looking good matter in the face of being an awesome, empowered, beautiful person?”

The crowd who filled the auditorium cheered. Brair, standing behind Cedar, nodded in approving agreement. Apple was still clearly shocked. She was also, from the way her shoulders slumped a little, shamed. Both applauded Cedar of course, and so did Mrs Her Majesty the White Queen, who was beaming proudly at Cedar.

“That,” Mrs Her Majesty the White Queen said, visibly touched by Cedar's passion and sincerity, “was beautiful. Do our judges have a winner?”

“I've thought long and hard, and,” Daring said as he stepped onto the stage, “I choose me.”

Silence greeted his announcement. Well, almost silence. Hopper, Dexter, and Hrafn were having a whispered debate of their own. Hopper was of course biased towards his crush, Briar, and he made some good points in her favour. Hrafn, as both Cedar's friend and someone who didn't think much of Apple, had that bias going on. Dexter was trying to be as fair and unbiased as possible.

When they finally came to an agreement, Hrafn was prompted (as Student Council President) to be the one to make the announcement.

“As pretty as I'm sure you would be in a dress, Daring,” Hrafn started, catching the Charming by surprise so much that he fell off the stage. “The _real_ winner of this year's Beauty Pageant is Cedar Wood, for her poignant reminder to all of us that true beauty is found within.”

~oOo~

“So, Dex...” came Duchess's voice from the door. “I really need some help.”

“After you two threw my glasses into a seeing double potion?” Dexter countered incredulously.

“Okay, um, I thought that was funny, but clearly you don't, so I'm sorry,” Duchess said, “but actually, I think I kinda need Hrafn's help...?”

Hrafn sighed as he pushed himself away from his desk, and the assignment he was working on for Experimental Fairy Math.

“Do you two have any idea how many classes he's taking? How much work he has to do at the end of the day?” Dexter demanded.

“Not so much that I can't make time,” Hrafn gently scolded his wonderfully protective room mate. “I appreciate it though, and you should have said about the potion on your glasses,” he added. A gesture, a puff of purple fire, and -

“Thanks Hrafn,” Dexter said appreciatively. “I didn't want to bug you about it when I know you've got a lot on your plate.”

“Speaking of plates?” Duchess interjected impatiently.

“Is this a personal friend favour type thing you need help with? Or Student Council Presidential type help?” Hrafn enquired.

“This guy is dumping his waste in the Enchanted Lake,” Duchess explained quickly, and held out a slightly scrunched flyer for the Marsh Pit Diner.

“Well, that's illegal,” Hrafn said plainly. “You can report that to the police. They'll probably shut down the diner and lock the guy up.”

“Really?” Duchess asked, blinking in surprise.

“Sure,” Dexter confirmed.

“Huh, and I thought the only fix would be to curse the guy...”

“Go on and be a heroine,” Hrafn encouraged Duchess with a smile. “No magic required, though if you have video proof, that will help get the police moving, and probably the Bookend Health Officials as well. Follow on film whatever you followed to be able to make the accusation. You can do this.”

“Right,” Duchess agreed fiercely. “I can. Thanks!”

Hrafn waved her off, and with Dexter headed back into their dorm room. There were still assignments waiting to be completed.

~oOo~

“Someone's in a good mood,” Hrafn observed as he slid into the seat next to Cerise in the Castleteria. “You've been smiling all day, even at things that would normally annoy you.”

Cerise tugged her hood down a little lower over her face, but not so far as to hide that she was, just as accused, smiling.

“My parents and I are having a picnic in the Enchanted Forest after school today,” Cerise confided in a delighted whisper.

“Sounds nice,” Hrafn said. “Oh, uh, and risky?” he added cautiously. “I mean, most of the Enchanted Forest isn't hexactly private. Hextensive, but not private.”

“We'll be fine,” Cerise asserted.

“What about your sister?”

“Still at the Dark Forest Reform School,” Cerise said, “but she's got the rest of the extended Badwolf family in howling distance while she's there.”

“I know he's a professor, but that is not right,” Hunter complained as he dropped into the spot opposite Hrafn.

“What's not right?” Hrafn asked.

“He thinks he's so big and bad,” Hunter complained. “He shouldn't be growling at students like that, especially when all I did was say 'hi' in the hallway.”

“Ah,” Hrafn said, and smiled crookedly at his friend and classmate. “Look Hunter, Professor Badwolf may not be all huff, but you don't have any classes with him, do you? He's a great teacher and he's never deliberately or wilfully harmed a student. Some have been scared into tripping themselves, but I really don't think that counts. Hex, when he assigns detentions, he's better about it than just about every other member of the faculty.”

“Really?” Cerise and Hunter both asked, surprised.

“Wait, how would you know?” Hunter tacked on. “I mean...”

“As Student Council President, I get all the complaints and petitions to have the detentions and punishments reduced,” Hrafn explained. “Professor Badwolf's detentions are held in his classroom after dinner, so students can't go to parties or whatever after, and he supervises them doing their thronework. He'll even give them help if they ask.”

“Huh,” Hunter hummed, and sat back on his seat. “Go figure.”

“But he uses that Big Bad reputation of his to make sure students do what they're told, when they're told,” Hrafn continued. “Sure he scares some of the students, but he doesn't generally abuse their fear of him.”

“Huh,” Hunter said again.

~oOo~

Thronecoming was something that Hrafn had only seen on the news before. It was a different experience to be in the middle of all the preparations leading up to it.

“The voting for Thronecoming King and Queen is all going to be online this year,” Dexter explained. “Humphrey Dumpty and I are in charge of it.”

“Let me save you some time, Little Bro,” Daring said as he took Dexter's mirror pad and dropped it on the ground. “I'm pretty sure I'll be crowned Thronecoming King. I mean, I am handsome.”

“Some girls prefer brunettes to blonds, Daring,” Hrafn countered dryly as he picked up, magically fixed, and passed Dexter's mirror pad back to him. “And more than just a few people plan to vote for Hopper and Briar as a couple. Give them a push. Or Ashlynn and Hunter, supporting their relationship.”

“What?” Daring yelped.

“Hrafn please report to the Headmaster's Office at once,” the PA summoned.

“Trouble?” Dexter queried.

Hrafn shrugged, but shook his head.

“Probably just some Student Council stuff, since there's so much going on with Thronecoming,” Hrafn said, not too worried. “I'd better go.”

“Okay,” Dexter agreed. “Later then.”

“I might not be crowned Thronecoming King?” Daring muttered to himself, still apparently stuck on that hammer blow to his world view. He didn't seem to be shattered just yet, merely confused that the world around him wasn't doing what he expected of it. See how it turned out at the Thronecoming Dance.

~oOo~

“Can we get you something?” Headmaster Grimm asked politely. He was sitting on his desk, clearly going for a more friendly vibe, and Hrafn was sitting in a very comfortable chair. “Dragon egg omelette?”

“No thank you, Headmaster,” Hrafn denied.

“Miss Trollworth, one dragon egg omellet!” the headmaster ordered sharply.

Hrafn sighed. And again with the ignoring what he'd just said. Headmaster Grimm hadn't done that so blatantly since the Legacy Day rehearsals.

“So, Hrafn, how is your Thronecoming float going, hm?” Headmaster Grimm enquired.

“Well, I've been working on the float that's going to carry the two thrones representative of the Thronecoming King and Queen,” Hrafn explained, “and I think it's going well.”

“Delightful,” Headmaster Grimm said jovially. “But nothing to represent your own story?”

Out the window behind the headmaster, and perfectly in view of Hrafn, Miss Trollworth tripped over the tail of the sleeping dragon she was stealing an egg from, and fell. It was a long way down, and Hrafn hoped she would be alright. Trolls were a resilient breed in general, but a fall like that could end very uncomfortably for anyone.

“No, Headmaster,” Hrafn said with a weak, crooked smile as he returned his attention to the older gentleman. “I haven't got one, remember? It's why I was the first student called up to sign the Storybook of Legends on Legacy Day.”

“Funny you should mention Legacy Day,” Headmaster Grimm said, his smile just a little more fake and forced than perhaps it should be. “Thronecoming is one of the few days a year that the Storybook of Legends is removed from its protective case and displayed for the public, and a perfect time for you to reconsider, and sign in front of the whole world.”

“Okay,” Hrafn agreed.

“Really? Just like that?” Headmaster Grimm asked, surprised.

“Well, yes,” Hrafn said, and shrugged.

“Do you want this boiled?” Miss Trollworth asked as she re-entered the office, holding the dragon egg she'd procured. The egg hatched, as though protesting being cooked at all, and the baby dragon promptly breathed fire into Miss Trollworth's face. “Or fried?” she finished weakly.

“Aw, come here little one,” Hrafn cooed at the baby dragon, and lifted it free of the remains of the egg shell. He quickly settled it in his arms, and rocked it gently as he stroked one hand down the baby dragon's spines. “Look, Headmaster. I may not be a really big fan of letting a book decide my fate rather than me, but I do understand that doing so is traditional and hexpected. Would I rather write my own destiny? Yes. Will I go along with this anyway? If it really is the right thing to do, then yes to that too, no matter how much of a bad idea I personally think it is. I didn't mean for the ceremony on Legacy Day to be cut short, or to prevent others who were hexcited to sign from doing so. I just... wanted a different destiny than the one I got offered.”

Headmaster Grimm's eyes narrowed at that.

“Would you be happy with being told by a magic book that your destiny is to wear a dress?” Hrafn asked pointedly. “So long as it's not going to try and sell cross-dressing as my destiny again, I'll sign. I might still not be happy about it, but I'll sign.”

Headmaster Grimm breathed out a frustrated sigh, but conceded to the compromise. It was in favour of what he wanted, after all.

“Now, if that will be all Headmaster? I should get this little one something to eat, before she decides that my fingers will do for a snack,” Hrafn excused himself. “Er,” he paused. “I can keep her, right?”

Headmaster Grimm huffed, rolled his eyes, and nodded.

“As you are in the top five in the class in Beast Training and Care, I see no problem with you raising the dragon. Just be careful of it around the other students,” he said firmly.

“Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir.”

~oOo~

Hrafn settled the baby dragon down in a hastily made-up bed in a carefully warded corner of the room he shared with Dexter. The bed was actually half a bale of straw in a large, high-sided basket that the baby dragon could burrow herself down into for a nap. The basket was also on its side, so it was more like a small wicker cave than a confining nest. Which was the reason for the ward line between the baby dragon and the rest of the room.

If it wasn't there, she'd be able to get to everything, and Hrafn didn't think Dexter would appreciate a baby dragon tearing up his sheets or destroying his thronework. For that matter, neither would Hrafn. There was a dish of water for the dragon to drink from – as a reptile, she had neither expectation or need for milk in her early developmental stages – and a dish with food in it.

Based on the needle-sharp teeth that the baby dragon already had, as well as what he'd learned from Beast Taming and Care, Hrafn had found her a steak to eat when she got hungry. He left it raw, but knew that if the dragon wanted it cooked, then she could cook it herself.

“You're going to need a name at some point,” Hrafn said to the baby dragon as he stroked her spines gently and shifted her from his arms into the straw. “Hm, and probably some toys to keep you entertained while I'm in classes. Well, for now...” he hummed, and conjured a few dragon toys, just with magic.

They wouldn't last, but they should hold until Hrafn could get his hands on some real toys for the baby dragon.

“And now... back to getting ready for the Thronecoming Parade, Dance, and Bookball game,” Hrafn said to himself. “Bookball game, then Dance.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Has anybody seen Briar?” Hrafn called once he'd done a quick walk-around of where the floats were receiving their final touches.

“I left her in our room, she had to finish sewing a skirt,” Apple answered. “Why?”  
“Because if she's not here, then she's missing,” Hrafn said firmly. “I may only have known Briar for a bit more than half a year, but I know there's no way she'd miss out on all this.”

“That's a fairy good point,” Apple agreed. “I'll go and check on her.”

“No, you're not finished making your float yet,” Ashlynn objected. “I'm already done. I'll go get her.”

“Thanks Ashlynn.”

Hrafn nodded in approval, and headed inside, where things were being set up for the Thronecoming Dance. He came face to face with a growling Cerise.

“Woah, sorry,” Hrafn apologised quickly as he stepped back before they could actually collide, and before he even noticed her foul mood. He was quick to notice though. “Hey, what's up?”

“I told them -” Cerise gestured back behind her to where Daring, Dexter, Hunter, and Sparrow were talking to Tiny. “That I thought I'd try out for the Bookball team. Sparrow said I couldn't because I was a girl, and Daring said that...” her whole pretty face twisted into an enraged snarl. “Damsels are for saving, not playing fairy-tale-back,” she mocked.

“There are times I am convinced that the only thing bright about Daring is his smile,” Hrafn asserted calmly. “Ah, any of that pizza left?” he asked, pointing at the pizza box in her hands.

“Yeah,” Cerise admitted. “Meatlovers,” she added, and lifted the lid for him to take a slice.

“Hexcellent,” Hrafn sighed with contentment as he breathed in the smell of his chosen pizza slice before taking a bite out of it. “Look, Cerise, if you want on the team, go straight to Coach Gingerbreadman. I'll back you with him, if you want.”

“Really?” Cerise asked, surprised out of her scowl and into a smile. “You'd do that for me?”

“Hex yes,” Hrafn confirmed. “I know how fast you can be if you want to, and we're facing Beanstalk High. We need all the help we can get.”

“Thanks, Hrafn.”

~oOo~

“Now, you're about to discover a most unique building here at school,” Madame Yaga informed the class once she'd dismissed her hut. The chicken-legged building would probably go back to the main school building and settle down on its giant nest again. “It's called Heritage Hall!” she declared grandly.

“Madame Yaga, where is it?” Cupid asked, confused.

Understandably so, as they'd come to a stop in a clearing right at the edge of the woods. There was definitely no building.

“Well, you see,” Madame Yaga purred out, and gestured to the clock tower in the distance behind them, just as it began to strike the hour. Noon. “Heritage Hall is a magical structure. It only appears during Thronecoming!”

The clock face lit up, and that light extended to just beyond where they stood. Students turned back from looking at the clock to the patch of grass that Madame Yaga had brought them to. As promised, a building was appearing. The foundations appeared first, then walls and pillars, stretching upwards until finally even the roof was complete and present.

With awed susurration, the class climbed the stairs.

“Heritage Hall is dedicated to those who came before you: your parents, the alumni of Ever After High,” Madame Yaga said as they entered. “Now, if everyone will gather around the Storybook of Legends -”

Hrafn had thought the tome he'd refused to sign on Legacy Day had deserved that title, but the Storybook of Legends that was the final focus of Heritage Hall looked big enough to get physically lost in. It dwarfed both Madame Yaga and Headmaster Grimm as they stood (or in Madame Yaga's case, floated) in front of it.

“- I'd like to tell you about your Thronecoming treasures,” Madame Yaga said. “When your parents were students, they were given the chance to leave gifts for any of their children who might attend this school. In your final year at Ever After High, you will be given that same opportunity. Please also do not take any gifts that were not left by your own parents, as they have been left for future generations already, or for your schoolmates who have not yet come to Heritage Hall. For those who do find gifts waiting for them, be sure to use what has been left to you responsibly.”

As classmates – including those whose parents were not, actually, alumni – ran off to find the portraits of their significant parents and the gifts they had left behind, Hrafn took a moment to think about his situation. The portraiture was stylised, of course, but he had nevertheless seen a rendition of a person who could only be his infamous mother. He just wasn't sure if he wanted to claim whatever gift she had left. She'd been anticipating a daughter to follow in her footsteps, after all, not a son – and he didn't see any pictures that would definitely represent his father.

In the end, he decided that, even if he left it there, he'd have a look to see what she'd left behind.

“Glasses?” Cedar questioned as he walked by. “Why would my dad – wait a splinter! Oh, I can't tell a lie, and neither can these glasses! They're revealer rays!”

“Whatever after,” Duchess scoffed. “They probably don't even work.”

“Well, they're telling me the truth about your dress,” Cedar countered with a smirk, “which is not a real Hans Christian Dior, like you've been telling everyone it is.”

Hrafn hoped that those glasses wouldn't decide to reveal his parentage to Cedar. She was a friend, and he trusted her, but her ability to keep secrets relied on her not being able to tell them. He'd told Cerise his secret, but that had been in trade for hers. A tit-for-tat thing, to help ease the burden of sharing her secret. Also, to keep the blackmail scales balanced, as he'd told Cerise at the time. He didn't have that kind of relationship with Cedar.

“What did you get, Hrafn?” Cerise asked softly, a new picnic basket hanging off her arm.

“I don't know if I actually get anything,” Hrafn pointed out. “Dad's picture isn't on the walls here, and I can't hexactly follow in my mother's footsteps.”

“Nice dodge, but really,” Cerise pressed. “You can acknowledge and accept your legacy, and all the perks, without having to commit to your destiny. I think that was the point we reached the last time we were arguing the pros and cons of going public with our family secrets.”

Hrafn laughed weakly in agreement, and gestured casually to the item that sat waiting for a (he was quite sure) daughter, rather than a son, on the plinth in front of his mother's picture.

“Bent stick,” Cerise noted. “Odd, but are you gonna claim it?”

“Think for a moment about who left it,” Hrafn countered. “You think just picking it up would be a good idea? I seriously doubt it's just a bent stick.”

“What? It might be a cutting of the tree that grows the poisoned apples?” Cerise suggested with a teasing smirk. “Hey, maybe Cedar could look at it with her new glasses.”

“I heard my name?” Cedar asked.

“Someone got left a stick,” Cerise explained.

“Who would -?” Cedar started, and looked up at the portraiture behind the podium. “Oh. Right. Well... have a look with my revealer rays?” she offered, and passed them over.

Cerise handed them to Hrafn, who in turn settled them across his nose and over his eyes.

“Magic wand,” he announced. “Not cursed, and not a cutting from a poisoned apple tree,” he added, and handed Cedar her new glasses back.

“Wicked,” Cerise decided.

“We'd better move on before Madame Yaga or Headmaster Grimm see us hanging around it though,” Cedar said. “Remember, we're not to take things that weren't left by our parents.”

“We won't,” Cerise promised her room mate with a smile. As soon as Cedar was out of hearing range, Cerise turned back to Hrafn. “So, are you going to take it, or what?”

It was very, very tempting. Probably not something to do where and when he could get caught doing it though.

“Maybe later,” Hrafn said, deciding to not decide just yet. There was still time before Heritage Hall would disappear for another year.

~oOo~

“As many of you will remember,” Headmaster Grimm said to the crowd that had gathered in Book End at the end of the Thronecoming Parade (big crowds, perfect weather, generally successful). “There was a... minor upset on Legacy Day. One that will now be corrected. Mr Hrafn, if you would please sign the Storybook of Legends,” he invited. With a flourish, he removed the red cloth that had been covering the podium and the tome that rested upon it. With the slightest of bows, he stepped aside.

Shocked whispers started up. Hrafn hadn't exactly made it public knowledge that he had agreed to sign the Storybook of Legends. Neither had the Headmaster. This kind of big news would have been all over the school, and Blondie would have done a mirror cast interviewing students for their reactions. But it was a surprise to everybody, and students were confused as much as they were surprised.

For the sake of doing it right, Hrafn had pulled out the same elaborate outfit he'd worn on Legacy Day. Yes, he had a suit specifically for the Thronecoming Dance, but this was book signing, not dancing.

“I know the subject of signing or not signing has been one of contention among my peers,” Hrafn began. “I never meant to cause that, and I certainly never intended to become the focus of it. My parents raised me to be like them, but while both hoped I might follow in their footsteps, neither truly expected that I would be able to. In fact, they raised me with the expectation that I would some day forge my own path. Which probably had something to do with why I wanted to be allowed to leave our isolated little castle in the forest and come to school here in the first place.”

The crowd laughed softly in appreciation.

In the midst of all of that, a voice called his name.

“But while I have no particular traditions of my own, I do understand the need to respect the traditions of others,” Hrafn continued. “And so I am prepared to sign my name to the Storybook of Legends, and tie my fate to the path it would set me on.”

“Hrafn!” came the call again. “Hrafn!”

“Miss Wood, split,” Headmaster Grimm ordered in a harsh whisper.

“Hrafn!” Cedar called again, and pushed past the Headmaster. “That's not the real Storybook of Legends! That's a fake!”

Gasps went up from everybody in the crowd.

Hrafn frowned as he looked at the book, then back to Cedar. She was wearing her revealer ray glasses, and he had personal experience of how they worked. He didn't doubt that she was right in her claims.

“Calm down,” Headmaster Grimm entreated. “Thronecoming pranks are a traditional occurrence.”

“This isn't a prank! My revealer rays only tell the truth,” Cedar asserted, and took the book off the podium, holding it up for everybody to see. “And that is not the real Storybook of Legends!”

“Calm down!” Headmaster Grimm commanded again as he took the book back from Cedar. “This has gone far enough. Mr Hrafn, it is time for you to sign the book and seal your destiny,” he ordered.

“If this is a fake,” Hrafn said, clearly and so that everybody could hear him, “and this is the same book that I stood in front of on Legacy Day, then that would explain why it seemed to think my destiny was to wear a dress.”

That shocked a few splutters and hastily stifled sniggers out of the crowd.

Hrafn frowned at the book again, held open by Headmaster Grimm.

“Cedar? Hold this?” Hrafn asked softly, and passed her the quill he'd been going to sign the book with.

“Hrafn?” Cedar questioned.

Hrafn, with a tiny touch of magic, claimed the book from Headmaster Grimm's hold. He moved back to the podium as he flipped the pages until he reached the inside cover and the facing page. Carefully, he pulled the dust cover off. It didn't come easily at first, having been stuck down by a combination of glue and magic. Once it was off though, it fell away to reveal -

“It's ten Bookball magazines stuck together! The cover was enchanted to make them look like the real thing!” Hrafn announced, and held the fake book aloft for everybody to see. He turned to the Headmaster. “Headmaster, I'm terribly sorry for all this trouble, but until the real book is found, no one will be able to sign it. Including me.”

Headmaster Grimm frowned and snatched the cover and the collection of Bookball magazines from Hrafn. He glared at the objects in his hands as though offended. As though they had personally and deliberately wronged him specifically. He transferred that same glare to Hrafn after barely a moment.

“I should have known better than to trust you, when you agreed so easily,” he accused. “You probably did this on purpose to make me look foolish.”

“Not my style, Sir,” Hrafn said.

~oOo~

“If there's one person who knows everything that goes on in this school,” Maddie said as she linked her arm with Hrafn's and dragged him out of his dorm room. “It's the person who lives under the school!”

“Maddie?” Hrafn asked. “Where are we going?”

“Well, Apple wanted find the real Storybook of Legends, and I thought you might be interested as well,” Maddie explained brightly. “I know you have to get your sleep for the Bookball game tomorrow, but I thought you'd like to see how we're going to start the search, Mr Student Council President!”

Hrafn chuckled, but conceded the point.

“Hi Apple,” he greeted the other girl who was waiting in the hall a bit further down.

“Sorry to bother you so late,” Apple apologised, “but I really think it's important.”

“I don't disagree,” Hrafn allowed. “I'm a bit surprised about who you went to for help, but I can't fault you for it either.”

“Technically, I didn't,” Apple said.

“I may have overheard Apple saying she wanted to find the book, and offered,” Maddie conceded brightly.

“Okay,” Hrafn said fondly. Maddie was something of an unstoppable force once she got going.

~oOo~

“So, who hexactly are we looking for?” Apple asked as she picked up a photo frame and flew the dust off.

They'd gone through a slightly magical door in the library, descended through the archives, then climbed down a series of ladders to reach an underground sort of cave system with even more books strewn everywhere.

“From the nest to the sea, comes the bird made of three, to seek truth, beauty, and me,” a gentleman with wild grey hair declared as he set pile of books down on top of another pile of books.

“It's hat-tastic to see you again too, Giles,” Maddie said with a smile, doffing her tea-cup hat as she curtseyed to the man.

“Giles Grimm?” Apple echoed, eyes wide and a faint, awed smile on her face. “I knew the Headmaster had a brother, but...”

“Feathers and friends, together, alone,” Giles said, offering his hand to shake.

“He says 'hi',” Maddie translated.

Hrafn took the man's hand in his, and shook firmly, though Apple had a slight issue with not being able to catch the offered hand at first. Once hands had been shaken, Giles reclaimed the picture frame from Apple.

“What's he doing down here?” Apple asked.

“He was cursed with a babble spell and only speaks Riddlish,” Maddie said, “and Riddlish isn't an exact language, so I don't really know. But! If the Storybook of Legends is near, he can absa-tiv-ly point us in the right direction,” she asserted, only to go cross-eyed when her random finger-pointing ended with one of them pointing at her own nose.

“Pages and chapter and bookmarks abound,” Giles said as he stood before a large, stone-framed, wall-mounted magical mirror. Eight scrolls appeared in it. “But where can freedom truly be found?”

“He's talking about the book,” Maddie said excitedly. “I'd better write this down. Hold please,” she requested. Where that top had came from, Hrafn didn't know, but he obediently held it while Maddie started pulling things out. “I know I have some parchment in here somewhere!”

~oOo~

“Alright, your shirt, padded trousers, socks, padded helmet, sport-hood designed and spelled so that only the person wearing it can remove it, gloves, and arm guards. You have your own shoes, but I got you some cleats for them in case you didn't have any,” Hrafn listed off as he piled the gear into Cerise's arms. “I'll keep the guys out of the change room while you gear up, but I did put your name on one of the lockers, for you to put your own things in during the game.”  
“Hrafn? Thanks,” Cerise said with a genuinely grateful smile and a hand on his shoulder before she slipped through the door.

Coach Gingerbreadman had given Cerise a chance to try out for the team on Hrafn's urging, and had been pleased and impressed with the girl's speed. Even with a rush on to get her a uniform that would fit though, it was only just ready the morning of the big game. Hence Hrafn handing it over and guarding the door while she changed.

The helmet part of the team uniform would on its own mean that Cerise didn't have to worry about hiding her ears under her usual hood. The helmet's ear-flaps should hide them just fine. Hopefully, they wouldn't press so hard as to make them uncomfortable. The hood was not a standard part of the uniform. It had been an extra consideration on Hrafn's initiative. He'd done the spellwork himself.

“Hrafn? Why are you standing around outside of the changing rooms?” Daring asked as he, along with the rest of the team, arrived.

Hrafn smiled in anticipation of giving the answer to that question, only for the door behind him to open.

“Well, it all fits, and thanks for the cleats Hrafn,” Cerise said, then blinked as she noticed the rest of the team. “Oh. Hi guys.”

“But -” Daring started.

“But -” Sparrow agreed.

“But she's got the fastest track record in the whole school,” Hrafn pointed out reasonably. “Which we'll need against the Giants.”

“It's all good, we have a plan,” Daring asserted.

“Tiny told us how all giants have really ticklish pinky toes,” Hopper explained.

“And we're absolutely going to be able to safely get close enough to the pinky toes of our opponents to tickle them,” Hrafn drawled disbelievingly.

The rest of the team winced as that sank in.

“See you all on the field,” Cerise said, and waved as she headed out.

~oOo~

Jaws dropped as the opposing team lined up on the field.

“I'll stay on the bench -” Sparrow jerked as Hrafn grabbed his team-mate by the collar.

“No, you're a good runner, we'll need that,” he scolded. “You're scared? Good! You'll run faster! Yes, they're bigger, yes, they'll be able to cross the field faster than us. They still have to play within the rules.”

After the whistle, the Giants scored the first touch-ground – and in the bleachers, Ashlynn winced for the pain her boyfriend must be feeling, having been smushed between the toes of two different giants.

“Major fairy fail,” Hunter managed to whimper as the scoreboard was changed and he was trapped under a giant foot.

But it wasn't a completely one-sided game. To be fair, Tiny was the one doing most of the tackling for their side, but Hrafn and Hopper managed to trip them a time or two as well. Not easy to do without getting squished, but possible.

Cerise scored a touch-ground.

Hopper did get thrown against the scoreboard once. That wasn't so good. The crowd actually boo'd when both of the Charming brothers fell into a giant footprint.

“Come on!” Coach Gingerbreadman yelled at them.

“But they're so fast!” Dexter objected as he picked himself up out of the footprint.

Cerise scored a touch-ground.

Daring, in considerably worse shape than his brother, stumbled up, backwards, and towards the coach, fighting his helmet that had turned sideways on him.

“Why aren't you doin' what I told yeh?” Coach Gingerbreadman demanded as he ripped Daring's helmet off and slammed it back on, straight this time. “Go! Go! Go!”

Cerise scored a touch-ground.

“Run! Run as fast as you can!” Coach Gingerbreadman yelled from his place on the side lines.

The scores for both sides climbed. There were seconds left on the clock, the game nearly over as the two teams lined up for one more, final play.

Dexter had the Bookball as they waited for the whistle to blow. Cerise, next to him, gave one more menacing growl that saw her giant opposite to pull his fingers back from her slightly – she had definitely made a reputation for herself on the field that day.

The whistle blew.

Dexter passed the Bookball back to Daring. Daring threw it to Hrafn. Hrafn ran as far as he could, as fast as he could, dodging giants, until one of them caught him and lifted him up, high off the ground.

On the sidelines, Coach Gingerbreadman was eating away at his hands in his nervousness.

“Cerise!” Hrafn yelled, and threw the book down to her.

She caught it, and she ran.

“Go Cerise!”

A giant tried to tackle her.

“You go, girl!”

Hrafn was dropped in favour of chasing after the girl with the Bookball.

“Yeah! Cerise!”

He made that giant pay for it by tripping him before he could take a step.

“Run! Run as fast as you can!” Coach Gingerbreadman yelled again.

Tiny tackled another giant out of the way.

“Go! Go! Go!”

A massive foot came down, and for a moment, no one was sure if it had come down on, or in front of, Cerise. That tense question was answered when she vaulted over the foot, and kept running.

“And the game is over! Cerise Hood scores the winning touch-ground!” the announcer called just as the final whistle blew. “Ever After High – wins!”

Cerise howled her triumph as the crowd roared and cheered for her. The team surrounded their heroine, congratulating her, and Hunter and Daring lifted her up onto their shoulders. Dexter and Hrafn both high-fived her. Hopper and Sparrow were both cheering wildly with the rest of the crowd as they brought up the rear of the team.

Celebrations were definitely in order. So were showers. And, it turned out, hasty protection spells over the school's Library of Elders – which was a different building to the regular library that the students all had regular access to. The giants from Beanstalk High hadn't liked being beaten, and had almost destroyed the building and all its valuable knowledge in retaliation. Definitely sore losers.


	6. Chapter 6

“So, you found it?” Hrafn asked. “During the Bookball Game, right?”

“Not hexactly,” Apple confessed awkwardly. “The clue from Giles Grimm led us to Heritage Hall, and then we kinda got stumped. Blondie and Cupid were there though, and they got curious about what we were up to. We all came back looking for Cedar, to see if her revealer rays would help, but Ashlynn and Briar overheard and Briar got upset about the whole thing.”

“Briar has good reasons to not want to follow her destiny,” Hrafn pointed out. “You might sleep a for a week, but Briar's story guarantees her a hundred years. At best, all of us will be old and feeble when she wakes up. At worst? Everybody she knows will be dead.”

“I never thought about it like that before,” Apple said softly.

Hrafn judiciously refrained from saying that he thought there was a lot of things that Apple didn't think about. She was so focused on her own Happily Ever After, that there were times when she got really thoughtlessly insensitive about other people's.

“Well, we've got some time before the dance,” Hrafn said, “if you want to make another go of looking for the book.”

“Really?” Apple said hopefully.

“It does need to be found,” Hrafn said. “Whether or not it needs to be signed, that's a whole other thing. But it definitely needs to be found.”

“I'll get Maddie and Cedar!” Apple cheered.

“And Blondie,” Hrafn recommended. “She won't want to miss out on a scoop like this, and she is your friend.”

“Right,” Apple agreed.

“I'll grab a couple of people to help as well, and meet you at Heritage Hall.”

~oOo~

“Briar?” Apple asked, surprised, when she saw who Hrafn had brought along.

“Whether we actually find the book or not, Briar has a right to know, and to be here,” Hrafn said solemnly. “Hopper came as emotional support for Briar. Ashlynn and Hunter, similarly, have a right to know one way or another.”

“That's fairest,” Apple agreed, and exchanged a pained, apologetic look with her best friend forever after.

“Now, Maddie, you're sure that the clue leads here?” Hrafn checked.

“Mhm!” Maddie nodded, and read off the parchment in her hand. “ _Where the stories of the past come alive, revive, and thrive_ , that's definitely here!”

“Cedar? Do you see anything?” Apple asked hopefully.

“No but... wait a splinter! I think the Storybook of Legends is... _in_ the Storybook of Legends,” Cedar exclaimed, peering through her glasses and gesturing to the very large book mounted at the far end of the building.

The group headed down towards it, and Hopper, Hunter, and Hrafn positioned themselves to try and pry the book open.

“Um, guys? I'm sure you'd do great,” Blondie interrupted, “but if it's a lock you need to get passed?” she withdrew a bobby-pin from her hair, and with a few tweaks, made it look less like a hair pin and more like a skeleton key. “That's kind of my thing.”

“Milady,” Hrafn deferred with a courtly bow.

Blondie giggled, but stepped up to the task. The bobby-pin lock-pick was inserted into the keyhole, the tumblers of the lock could be heard shifting, and with a final, loud, echoing _click_ , the mirror-like oval on the front cover swirled into ominous magical life. Blondie stepped back in a shocked hurry.

“Wicked,” Hrafn noted, and stepped up. “Think we're supposed to dive in?” he suggested thoughtfully. “Maddie? Any hints? Any clues left?”

“ _A chapter for all, to live and survive, with a page of the answer, and come out alive_ ,” Maddie read off from her parchment.

“Well, if we're going to come out, then I'd guess that we've got to go in first,” Hrafn said reasonably, and dived in.

~oOo~

“Woah, what is this place?” Hunter asked as he stood, and then helped Ashlynn to her feet as well.

“Look at all the writing,” Cedar noted as she, pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, just far enough away from what she'd landed on to get a good look at it.

“I think we're inside the book,” Apple said.

“Okay, what have we got to work with?” Hrafn asked. “A chapter for all, that's what it said. Right, Maddie?”

“The books,” Maddie said as she stared up around them. “There are nine books.”

“And there are nine of us,” Ashlynn noted as she cautiously approached one of the books that towered over them in a strange circle.

“To live and survive,” Hrafn recalled. “We go in to these as well. Live the stories they tell, and... With a page of the answer...”

“It sounds like a page from the Storybook of Legends is hidden in each of these books,” Apple said.

“But how do we know which story is ours?” Cedar asked.

“If your glasses aren't telling you, then we don't,” Hrafn answered gravely.

Cedar shook her head.

“Guess there's no going back,” Briar said nervously, and moved to stand in front of one of the books. She wedged her fingers in between the pages, a golden glow her answer.

Everybody else mimicked her movements.

“One,” Hrafn counted. “Two...”

On 'three', everybody pulled their books just a little wider, and the golden glow of the books enveloped them, pulling them inside.

~oOo~

“Is everybody okay?” Hrafn demanded when he'd returned to the circle of books, golden ball saved from the bottom of the well, and page found. He'd been in Hopper's story. Fortunately, he hadn't been turned into a frog for it. “Who faced what?”

“I was in Blondie's story,” Cedar volunteered.

“I never want to go home with Maddie on break,” Blondie said firmly.

To which Maddie giggled.

“I was in Ashlynn's story,” she added once her giggles had calmed.

“I got to be Hunter,” Ashlynn confessed, and wrapped her hands around her boyfriend's. “That's not as easy as you make it look, Sweetie.”

“I was Cedar,” Hunter said.

“Taking into consideration a terrifying old woman was trying to get me to eat an apple,” Hopper said weakly, now a frog clinging to a scroll rather than a young man. “I'm going to surmise that I was in Apple's story.”

“Let's get you back to normal,” Blondie suggested, and – screwing her eyes shut – kissed Hopper's cheek.

“Thanks,” Hopper said gratefully once he was human again.

“We're still missing Apple, and -” Hrafn cut himself off as Briar, who he'd been about to name, appeared. “Briar, are you okay?”

“Oh Hrafn,” she said softly, sadly. “I... I had no idea...”

Hrafn closed his eyes and breathed deeply before he opened them again, crossed the circle to stand before the girl and gently took her shoulders in his hands.

“Was it the mirror?” he asked softly.

Briar nodded, clutching her page and not meeting his eyes.

“I thought you didn't have a story?” Hunter queried.

“I don't have a story,” Hrafn asserted. “That doesn't mean I don't have a legacy. I just don't talk about it.”

“I don't blame you,” Briar said. For a moment, she was silent, clearly debating something with herself, before: “and I won't tell, either,” she promised.

“Thank you,” Hrafn said softly.

“Wait a spell,” Blondie interrupted. “Apple still hasn't come back.”

“And Briar's is the only book left,” Ashlynn figured out.

“So, if Apple has my story, and she fell asleep, she won't be able to find her page!” Briar said, snapping up, fear in her eyes.

“Briar, no!” Hrafn said, holding her fast when she went to move towards her book. “It's too dangerous -”

“I have to!” Briar denied, wriggling in his hold. “She's my best friend.”

“Too dangerous for _you_ ,” Hrafn emphasised, and pushed her at Hopper in the same move as he marched up to the book in question.

Hopper caught Briar, quick to brace himself so that they didn't go tumbling, but not quick enough for anybody to stop Hrafn going in after Apple.

~oOo~

“Hrafn did it!” Blondie cheered when the pair appeared.

“Well, I got the page and Apple,” Hrafn corrected, the two pages in one hand, and Apple cradled in his arms and against his chest like a child. “Whether she'll wake up or not...”  
“Apple!” Briar yelled, and rushed over. “Wake up! Wake up!” she begged her friend.

Slowly, blue eyes opened. As she registered just who was holding her, her brow furrowed in confusion.

“You saved me?”

“I am responsible for you,” Hrafn pointed out. “Student Council President, and a group of students doing something potentially dangerous? While I'm with them? Yes, I am definitely responsible for all of you getting back to school safely and unharmed. Now, let's get out of here. We should all still have time to get these pages down to Giles and get ready for the Thronecoming Dance still.”

Only, when they got down to Giles, and the pages they had retrieved came together...

“That doesn't look like the Storybook of Legends,” Hunter said dubiously.

Hrafn grabbed the tablet out of the air.

“Well, what does it say?” Ashlynn asked.

“Speech return, words you say, break this curse for our new day,” Hrafn declared, his words taking on the slight echoing sound of magic being incanted, but...

“Nothing happened,” Briar said, confused.

“But it did,” Giles corrected with a smile. “You retrieved the pages so that you could break my curse.”

“He says we retrieved the pages -” Maddie cut herself off with a gasp. A happy one, judging by the smile. “Giles! You can talk! Like, everyone can understand you talk!” she said, and hugged the man.

“Yes, Madeline,” he agreed, returning the embrace. “And for that I thank you, all of you. It took extraordinary courage for you to face those challenges,” he told them. “You are all a credit to your stories.”

“But, Mr Grimm,” Apple spoke up, a tremor in her voice. “If we weren't searching for the Storybook of Legends, do you know where it is?”

“No,” Giles drew out, “but I know who took it.”

“Who?!” Cedar asked, eager to know the truth of the matter.

“The Evil Queen.”

Gasps, many of them fearful, were released by the group. Even with as long as she had been trapped in the Mirror Realm, the Evil Queen was still feared far and wide.

“But... why?” Briar asked softly.

“I do not know, but I can tell you this,” Giles said, and with a gesture, had the large mirror on his wall playing out a scene for them to watch. “Years ago, the Evil Queen tried to expand beyond her story, and bring evil to all the tales.”

The mirror showed the original Storybook of Legends in its protective case. The shadowy figure of a young Evil Queen smashed the case with a hammer, and replaced the true book with a fake.

“My brother and I, we stopped her,” Giles said, as that shadowy figure was shown being blasted with a light, and the image resolving into a cruel looking frame around a large upright mirror.

“But why are you down here?” Blondie asked.

“Oddly enough, because of my brother,” Giles admitted.

“What? Why?” Ashlynn asked.

Giles sighed, and moved away from the mirror to rest against a desk.

“Let me tell you a tale,” he said.

The tale was of two small boys, brothers, and of the older daring the younger to go into a cave where an ogre was said to live, and from which – according to stories – no one had ever returned alive. A good distance into the cave, the elder brother finally took fright, and flight, leaving the younger brother behind. He ran home, and confessed what he had done to their father, who in turn went to rescue the younger of his two sons.

Reunited, the elder brother apologised and swore to never go against the stories again.

“While I always respected our fairy tale past,” Giles said as he concluded his tale, “I also thought that each of us should be able to write our own destiny.”

“And the Headmaster didn't like that,” Cedar concluded.

“Indeed he did not,” Giles agreed. “He cursed me with that babble spell and imprisoned me here.”

“But you're not cursed any more,” Hunter pointed out.

“Yes, thanks to you extraordinary youngsters,” Giles agreed. “But now, Thronecoming is almost upon us!”

“Are you coming with us?” Apple asked hopefully.

“Well now,” Giles said with a gentle laugh. “I haven't been to a party in ages. I wouldn't know what to wear.”

“We'll help,” Apple said.

“Oh no,” Hrafn vetoed. “We,” he gestured between himself, Hopper, and Hunter, “will help. Leave men's fashion to the guys.”

~oOo~

“So, who did you vote for?” Hrafn asked Dexter as they got ready for the dance. “Not your brother, right?” he checked.

“Don't tell him, but no, I didn't,” Dexter confirmed with a chuckle. “I voted for Hopper and Briar. I figured Hopper could use all the help he can get, to get Briar to agree to date him. What about you?”

“Shouldn't you know that from the online voting?” Hrafn questioned as he combed back his hair, with just a bit of gel on the teeth of the comb to help hold everything in place while still looking natural.

“The system registers that you voted, and prevents you from voting again, because you had to log in to vote, but the voting is still anonymous,” Dexter asserted. “Come on, with all the different girls you've asked to all the parties that have been held since you first got here, you've got to have a good idea of who'd be a good Thronecoming Queen.”

Hrafn sighed.

“Dex, who I'd like to see as my personal Thronecoming Queen? And who will get the votes for it, are definitely going to be two different people,” Hrafn said. “Her name wasn't even on the list of nominee options to vote for.”

Dexter winced at that.

“Sorry, Hrafn,” he apologised.

Hrafn waved it off.

“No, I get why,” Hrafn said easily. “Thronecoming King and Queen are chosen by popular vote. If they're not popular, they won't get the votes. I voted for you, by the way.”

“What?!” Dexter yelped. “Me?”

“I'm guessing from that reaction, that while there were votes for you, you're not winning that crowns tonight,” Hrafn said, and released a (slightly melodramatic) lamenting sigh.

“Well, I haven't counted the votes,” Dexter admitted, “but I knew that you and I are both on the list of candidates for Thronecoming King... so we've all probably got some votes, but voting for me?” he stammered a bit at the end, just a little embarrassed by the suggestion.

Not because he was against it, he wasn't, but he also wasn't used to people thinking of him when Daring was an option.

“Wait, you didn't say which girl you voted for to get Thronecoming Queen...”

“When will the votes get counted?” Hrafn asked, ignoring the implied question. He didn't have to answer it, and Dexter would only blush and stammer if Hrafn told him he'd voted Cupid to be Thronecoming Queen to Dexter's King. Cupid still hadn't confessed, and Dexter still hadn't figured it out. It was even worse than Briar and Hopper. At least there, both parties knew that Hopper wanted to date Briar, and both parties also knew that Briar was still unsure. Partly because of Hopper's sometimes being amphibious, and partly because of her prescribed destiny – falling in love only to lose them because she had to sleep for a hundred years? Not something she wanted to have happen to either her, or to anyone else.

“Oh, the program that Humphrey and I set up is doing the actual counting, constantly and automatically,” Dexter explained eagerly. “We've just got to get the final results together and pass them on to Melody, since she's announcing it. The voting will close about half an hour before the winners are announced.”

“Wicked.”

“Uh, wait... so, since the girl you wanted to vote for wasn't an option, did you ask her as your date instead?” Dexter asked.

“I'm actually going stag tonight,” Hrafn answered, nose in the air. “In the admittedly unlikely event that I get Thronecoming King, if the girl I asked then didn't get Thronecoming Queen, that would make things a bit awkward, don't you think?”

Dexter winced, which was agreement enough, really.

~oOo~

“Welcome, everyone,” Headmaster Grimm started, only to be stopped by the horrible, warped, loud and shrill noise of feedback from his lapel microphone.

Everybody covered their ears and grimaced in pain, but Humphrey was quick to run onto the stage and fiddle with the microphone just enough to cut out the feedback.

“To Ever After High's Thronecoming Dance!” Headmaster Grimm continued, and threw his arms wide – accidentally knocking Humphrey off the stage.

Luckily, he was caught by the students who had been standing there. While Humphrey was crowd-surfing thanks to cheering fellow students, Dexter pressed a button to release the curtain that had been hanging behind the headmaster. It fell to reveal a screen that, at that moment, had a projection of a collection of the same images that were mounted on the walls in Heritage Hall. The chosen collection included the stories of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Pinnocchio, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Snow White (though the Evil Queen was more prominent than Snow White that particular tableau, for some reason).

“The school tradition where we spellebrate our stories, and those who came before us,” Headmaster Grimm said.

Then the spotlight clunked, and swung from him up to the DJ booth, where it stopped on Melody Piper.

“We'll get to the big announcement, Thronecoming Queen and King, soon,” she promised. “Don't forget to get your votes in, there's not much time left! But now, let's get this party started. Follow me!” she called out, and set a vinyl on her turntables. She lowered the needle of the arm, and as the music began, a rainbow of light shot out of the horn of the unicorn statuette beside her. It lanced straight into the giant disco ball that had been hung from the ceiling.

The party was officially begun, as everybody started dancing, and the projection screen on the stage started to cycle through old pictures of Ever After High alumni.

~oOo~

Hrafn was circulating. As he'd told Dexter, he hadn't asked any girl to be his date for the Thronecoming Dance. That didn't mean he wasn't dancing. He'd already danced with Cerise, Duchess, and Kitty. He was well aware of the list of which girls had been nominated for Thronecoming Queen, and he was going to deliberately not dance with any of them until after the announcement had been made, if he danced with any of them. He probably wouldn't be able to steal Ashlynn for a dance at all even if he'd wanted to, what with her actually dating Hunter.

He had just been heading over to ask Lizzy Hearts for a dance when he saw Briar slipping out the door.

“Hey,” he called as he followed after her, out of the dance and into the halls. “What's the rush? You might miss the announcement. Be a bit awkward if you got Thronecoming Queen and weren't there to receive the crown.”

“Oh, Hrafn, hey,” Briar said, and shifted nervously.

“Briar,” he said sadly. “You're not... letting my legacy change how you look at me, are you?” he asked.

“No!” Briar yelped at once. “No, that's not it. Sorry, Hrafn. I didn't mean to make you think that... I just... I think... you know what, you'd better come.”

“Come? Briar...”

“We'll be back in time for the announcement,” Briar promised, and grabbed his hand to drag him down the halls, through the school, and up to her dorm room. She explained as they power-walked – her shoes weren't made for running in. “Okay, so, while we were getting ready for the dance, I was feeling down about, well, you know.”

Hrafn nodded. Destinies, and legacies, had been on people's minds lately.

“Anyway, I saw something a bit odd when I was just staring at the rug next to my bed,” Briar continued. “It looked kinda like magic? And then one of the pictures they showed over the stage looked like my dorm room, and one of the people was lifting up a rug, just like mine and in the exact same spot, but I didn't recognise who they were. So I asked Madame Yaga, and she said they were Little Red Riding Hood and the Evil Queen.”

“You think the Evil Queen hid something under the rug in your dorm room?” Hrafn asked, intrigued and just a little incredulous.

“I asked Cedar to lend me her revealer rays, and I grabbed a bobby pin out of Blondie's hair on the way,” Briar said, setting the former item on her nose and lifting the latter in her other hand.

“And what do you intend to do with the Storybook of Legends if it's there?” Hrafn asked.

“I don't know,” Briar admitted just a little petulantly as she pushed open her dorm room and led the way inside. She knelt down in front of her rug, and flipped it out of the way. “Maybe I'll drop it down the Well of Wonder,” she said, and pushed the stolen bobby pin into a lock that Hrafn couldn't see.

A few clicks and clunks, and a rectangle of light revealed...

“The Storybook of Legends,” Briar whispered as she brushed the dust and cobwebs off the cover.

“You were right,” Hrafn said. “But, Briar, it will take much too long to get all the way out to wherever the Well of Wonder is at the moment, and back to the party. I mean, transportation magic would work, but that's something I still haven't got completely down yet when I don't know my target exactly. How about, for now, we just hide it under your pillow or something.”

“You're not going to tell me to turn it in to Headmaster Grimm?” Briar asked, surprised.

“I was never in your dorm room,” Hrafn asserted as he stood again. “I have no idea what you did or did not find. I followed you to remind you not to miss the Thronecoming Queen announcement, that's all.”

“Right,” Briar said with a smile and a sigh. “Student Council President responsibility.”

“Well, deniability, in this case,” Hrafn corrected. “Now, while I'm not at all certain I could get us to the Well of Wonder and back in time, I can definitely get us back to the party before we're missed,” he offered.

“Thanks Hrafn.”

~oOo~

“It's time to announce the Thonecoming Queen and King!” Melody declared. She'd left the DJ's box, and was down on the stage in front of a pair of lush thrones. She held the envelope with the final results in her hand.

The student population cheered.

“This year's Thronecoming Queen and King are -”

There was a drum roll as she opened the envelope and removed the parchment.

“Briar Beauty and Hopper Croakington the Second!”

Daring's jaw fell open in shock. Beside him, Apple (who had anticipated winning as well) was equally surprised. For that matter, as Briar and Hopper got up on stage to accept their Thronecoming Crowns, and Briar also got a bouquet of flowers, they looked more than a bit shocked to find themselves in that position as well.

“I guess enough people decided they needed a push,” Hrafn commented to Dexter with a smile.

“Who knows, maybe it will even work,” Dexter returned with a smile of his own.


	7. Chapter 7

About a week after Thronecoming, mysterious packages of heart-shaped cookies were left outside of every dorm room door in the early hours of the morning. These thoughtful gifts unfortunately led to yelling between open windows facing the girls and boys dormitories as Helga Crumb warned everybody to not eat the treats because they were made by Ginger Breadhouse.

“Oh no! Her mother used candy to try and lure your mother and my father to their doom!” Gus yelled back. “And now she's trying to lure us too!” he cried, and threw the cookie in his hand out the window he'd been talking to his sister through.

“If you don't want them, put them back in the boxes they came in,” Hrafn ordered everybody, loudly so that both dorms would be able to hear. “And I will collect them. No throwing food on the floor!”

Half an hour later, every box of treats that had been given to a Royal had found its way into Hrafn's room, and half the ones that had been given to Rebels had too. Just the Rebels that didn't know Ginger personally though. The rest had quietly slipped the boxes into their rooms and hid them to be snacked on after school. Nothing like sweet treats to make thronework more bearable.

“Uh, Hrafn?” Dexter asked as he considered the pile of boxes, each one full of Ginger's baked goods. “What are you going to do with all of this?”

“Eat it,” Hrafn said plainly. “Ginger's baking is delicious. Beyond hextacular. If they're dragon safe, then I might even share a few with Nevermore. She's got a bit of a sweet tooth.”

Dexter shook his head at his room mate and the name he'd picked for the baby dragon he'd somehow acquired during Thronecoming. (“The headmaster gave her to me” was hardly an explanation, in Dexter's opinion.)

“Of course her baking is good,” Dexter said with a worried frown. “Her mother -”

“Ah,” Hrafn cut his friend and room mate off. “Ginger's a sweet-tempered, mousy, quiet thing, for all that her hair is an even louder pink than Cupid's. She's not her mother, and she's got no intention of following her story.”

Dexter sighed.

“Did I miss you taking Ginger to a dance?” he asked dully. “Because, apart from the story, I'm not sure I've actually met her before, er, yet.”

“You might have missed that date, yes,” Hrafn chuckled. “But I actually got to know her when I was running for Student Council President. She's been the head chef and supervising baker for pretty much every food-based fund-raiser we've had.”

“Wow, really?” Dexter asked, surprised. He was also, clearly, reconsidering the box of treats he'd handed over to Hrafn. “I thought you got all of the cooking classes involved.”

“I do,” Hrafn confirmed. “But Ginger's the one in charge of the kitchens unless there's a teacher there. Look, now that I've got all the treats saved from being thrown on the floor and wasted, I'm going to find Ginger.”

“You've got time for that?” Dexter asked, surprised.

Hrafn scowled briefly.

“I've cut down on my course-load this term,” he said. “I know I've got limits, and adding Nevermore to my responsibilities, while keeping up the number of classes I was taking, wasn't going to work. I'm still on the Bookball team, I'm still Student Council President. Until the end of this school year, at least.”

“You can change your class load mid-term?”

“Nevermore gets categorised as an hexceptional circumstance,” Hrafn admitted, and gave the young dragon a gentle scratch to the top of her head.

~oOo~

“Hey Ginger,” Hrafn greeted as he slid in to sit next to her at the table she'd chosen in the Castleteria. “Thanks for the treats this morning.”

“You're welcome,” Ginger said with a small, appreciative smile, grateful for the acknowledgement and gratitude, rather than the denouncement and screaming that had come so loudly from Gus and Helga Crumb that morning. “I just... I wish I didn't have to hide that it was my baking for everybody to be willing to enjoy it.”

“I wondered if it might be something like that,” Hrafn said with a sigh. “Oh, before I forget, those treats are dragon safe, right? Nevermore has a sweet tooth.”

Ginger giggled.

“They're safe for Nevermore as well,” she promised.

“Great. Now, your issue,” Hrafn said firmly, and pulled out his mirror-pad. “I've grabbed one of those trailers the school uses for food vendors at fairs, and I've written a letter to send to Jack Horner.”

“The spellebrity chef?!” Ginger squeaked, eyes wide behind her glasses.

“I haven't sent it yet,” Hrafn comforted with a gentle smile, “but I figured that people might need a push before they're willing to go off-book. Are you okay with this?”

Ginger took a deep breath, and nodded. It looked rather like someone who had just said “rip it off and get it over with” in regards to a band-aid.

“You'll be fine,” Hrafn promised as he hit the send button. “Your treats are beyond hextacular.”

“Thanks,” Ginger said with a small smile.

“No time to thank me when there's baking to do,” Hrafn countered with a smile and a friendly nudge.

~oOo~

A slick black car pulled up outside of Ever After High, and the chauffeur opened one of the rear doors. A tall, blonde man stepped out of the car, instantly causing a commotion as he was recognised.

“It's not-so-little Jack Horner!”

“The spellebrity chef?!”

Admirers offered up things for him to sign, which he obligingly did as he explained his presence to the crowd.

“I got some mirror mail that your school has a chef that makes the tastiest treats,” he told them all with a smile. “I just had to try!”

“Then step on up,” Hrafn invited with a gesture to the food truck he'd commandeered, and helped Ginger decorate just for this.

The lady herself stood beside it, just a little nervously. This was a big deal for her after all.

“But those treats!” Gus wailed. “She uses them to lure you to your doom!”

“Well, you only live once upon a time!” Jack declared, and stepped up to the array of baked treats to choose one. He picked up a pie and stuck in his thumb.

The watching crowd gasped as that sauce-covered thumb was tasted.

“Hm,” Jack hummed thoughtfully. “That... is... out of this kingdom!” he declared, holding the pie aloft.

Ginger sighed in relief.

“Hey, can you make some more for my restaurant?” he asked eagerly.

“Sure!” Ginger agreed with a delighted, and possibly just slightly hysterical, giggle.

Hrafn wrapped an arm around Ginger's shoulders and gave her a supportive, congratulatory squeeze. They didn't stay like that for long though, Ginger had baking to do. While she got to filling Mr Horner's order, Hrafn turned to the watching crowd.

“Ginger just wants to share her treats,” he told them all.

Dexter, bless him, stepped up to buy a cupcake from the food truck first. He did have assurances from his room mate that Ginger had been baking for school events for a while, after all, and nothing bad had happened yet. This was just Ginger being recognised for her work.

“Oh wow,” Dexter moaned as he took a bite. “You were right Hrafn, these are beyond hextacular,” he confirmed.

He'd be grilling his room mate, and possibly Ginger herself, later as to why this bit of baking tasted even better than the treats he'd bought occasionally at other bake sales. He would probably also be diving into that massive pile of boxed treats sitting in his dorm room that Hrafn had saved from being thrown away earlier.

“It's that good?” Cupid asked cautiously.

Dexter smiled, and broke off a piece of his cupcake – away from where he'd bitten into it – and offered the piece to Cupid to taste.

Blushing, she accepted the piece of cake. At first, she was hyper-focused on the feel of Dexter's fingers lightly touching her lips as she accepted the piece of cake, but then the flavours hit her tongue, and her eyes popped wide open in shock. This, of course, made those who were still just watching a bit nervous, but then -

“Half a dozen please,” she ordered quickly once she'd swallowed that little sample down.

Hrafn, laughing, parcelled them up for her. Ginger was still cooking Jack Horner's order for his restaurant, after all.

People came cautiously for their first taste, then did as Cupid had, and bought an armful. Hrafn, naturally, couldn't bake more for the food truck – cooking wasn't exactly his thing – and Ginger was busy, so what went wasn't getting replaced. Jack Horner, his order filled, grabbed the last two cupcakes on his way out.

“What did I miss while I was in the kitchen?” Ginger asked, wide-eyed.

Hrafn smiled.

“You're a hit,” he informed her, and handed over the profits of the day to the one who had really earned them. Less the cost of the school ingredients she'd used (roughly) and a rental fee for the truck. Neither of which were very much, and certainly not so much as to make a dent in the pile of gold that Ginger's baking had brought her.

Ginger blinked in surprise.

“Wow,” she breathed.

~oOo~

The next big thing on the school's social calendar was the Spring Fairest. It was just about the last thing before summer vacation. Sure there were still classes, there would be more parties, and of course tests and stuff, but Spring Fairest was the last really big thing before summer. Which meant it was going to be the last big thing that Hrafn did as Student Council President.

He was not running for the position again next year. Even with the reduced course-load, keeping up all of his extra-curricular activities and raising a young dragon was... exhausting.

“I am going to sleep for a week,” Hrafn declared the night before Spring Fairest. “Don't you dare let anybody kiss me awake,” he warned his room mate.

Dexter laughed at that.

“I don't think Nevermore would let you,” he pointed out.

“No, you're right, of course she wouldn't,” Hrafn grumbled fondly and smiled over to where the young dragon was curled up in her basket, asleep and adorable. As though she hadn't decided it would be a good day to practice her fire breathing while playing dress-up in Hrafn's wardrobe.

“Besides, you helped organise the whole thing,” Dexter continued. “Don't you want to see everybody enjoying the results of all that hard work?”

“If I go, then I'll get roped into doing more work,” Hrafn asserted.

“You won't,” Dexter countered. “If you don't let yourself be. Come on, Hrafn. Give yourself a day off for once. Hex, ask a girl on a date. No girl is going to let you get away with being dragged from a date to work.”

“There's a few that would, actually,” Hrafn corrected. “Apple, for hexample, would definitely let her date off if it meant helping people.”

“You've never asked Apple on a date,” Dexter said.

“No,” Hrafn agreed. “She's not my type.”

“Which is saying something when you've gone on a date with everybody from my sister to... to... to Duchess Swan! Are you ever going to settle on just one girl?”

“I've been thinking about it,” Hrafn said. “Asking girls on dates, even casual ones, is great for getting to know them, but...”

“Oh hey, that's right, you said something about how the girl you wanted to vote for as Thronecoming Queen wasn't nominated,” Dexter recalled. “That the girl you've been thinking about?”

“Yes.”

Dexter blinked. That had been an uncommonly straight answer from his room mate. No evasion, no redirection, not even any elaboration. Dexter decided not to press it. Hrafn was obviously exhausted if he was being that blunt.

~oOo~

Hrafn had happily slept for as long as Nevermore would let him, which was longer than usual as Dexter, awesome room mate that he was, had taken it upon himself to get Nevermore's breakfast sorted out before he left for the Spring Fairest. Which let Hrafn sleep longer.

Nevermore entertained herself with the dragon-proof toys that Hrafn had bought for her until she got bored with them and jumped up on Hrafn's bed.

“Oof!” Hrafn grunted, jerking into wakefulness. “Oh, good morning Nevermore, hungry?”

Nevermore shook her head and looked over at her food bowl. The remains of her breakfast still lined it, just a few scraps she hadn't licked up, but she had clearly been fed.

“I guess I owe Dexter a thank you, huh?” Hrafn guessed.

Nevermore nodded in confirmation. For all that she was sometimes more trouble than a kitten in a basket of yarn, Nevermore was very intelligent. Actually, that intelligence was probably why she was so much trouble from time to time. She got bored.

“Alright, let me up. I'll get dressed, have my breakfast, and we can go down to the Spring Fairest,” Hrafn suggested as he scratched Nevermore's forming forehead jewels – a result of her having been exposed to so much magic in her formative years. Magic exposure while she'd still been in the egg would have had even more dramatic effects. “How's that sound, girl?”

Nevermore chirped in agreement, and hopped off the bed.

~oOo~

Hrafn and Nevermore arrived at the Spring Fairest just in time to see the troll who was working the Fairest Wheel have a fit of sneezing, sending the wheel spinning at speeds it really wasn't meant for, and that the people riding had definitely not been prepared for.

Kitty's smile, and the rest of her, appeared next to him as he readied his magic to stop the wheel so that everybody could get off.

“Aww, don't spoil my joke, Hrafn,” Kitty entreated with a smiling pout.

“Kitty, you know I love your jokes, but if anyone on that Fairest Wheel gets hurt, then it's not a joke any more,” Hrafn countered, and grabbed the wheel with his magic.

Once everybody was off the wheel (some stumbling about a bit because some of them were very dizzy, and others motion sick from the up-down, backwards-forwards, really really fast, but no one unaffected), Hrafn released the magic he'd been using.

“No fun,” Kitty grumbled, and vanished.

Hrafn sighed, and waved for Nevermore to stick close as they properly got into what was going on around the Spring Fairest. The next time he saw Kitty, she and the other Wonderlandian students had tackled a newcomer who was holding a white rabbit.

“Meet our good friend Alistair Wonderland!” Maddie presented to the curious crowd that had gathered at the odd sight of a guy being tackled by Kitty and Maddie, while Lizzy stood over, giggling happily. “None other than the son of the famous Alice!”

“Is that -” Lizzy started to ask, eyes fixed on the rabbit in Alistair's arms.

“Yep,” he confirmed. “It's Bunny.”

The rabbit hopped out of his arms and transformed mid-air, landing as a white-haired girl.

“Bunny Blanc,” she introduced herself. “Daughter of the White Rabbit.”

“Woah, you're a girl!” Sparrow exclaimed, clearly thrilled with this development as he strutted up to her. “Sweet fairy fire.”

“She's with me,” Alistair said, imposing himself between Bunny and Sparrow. “I mean,” he said eyes wide and blushing.

Behind him, Bunny was blushing too.

“I think we all know what you mean,” Hrafn cut in before there could be any further foot-in-mouth embarrassment. “Welcome to Ever After, Alistair and Bunny. I'm Hrafn, Student Council President.”

“You're supposed to be having today off, Hrafn,” Dexter called over. “Leave the official welcome for another time.”

“Wait a skoodle,” Maddie said, and shook her head quickly, making _bulululu_ noises. “How did you two get here?”

“I'd like to know that myself,” Headmaster Grimm said, expression fierce, as he stormed through the crowd. “All the portals to Wonderland are sealed.”

“We found a way through,” Alistair said. Which really, stating the obvious. They were standing right there, after all.

“Impossible!” Headmaster Grimm accused.

“Well, except for that one,” Giles said as he lay a hand on his brother's shoulder. “That was left open to let a little bit of Wonder flow in from Wonderland.”

“Oh, argh, right,” Headmaster Grimm grumbled unhappily. “Young man,” he said, and that censuring finger came out again, waving up and down as he tried to lecture someone who had no particular reason at all to respect him. “I do not know what kind of trick you are trying to pull, but you are not supposed to be in this world.”

“Headmaster,” Hrafn said, getting between Alistair and Headmaster Grimm. “Supposed to or not, he's here now. Can we all just enjoy today, and get to asking the whys and wherefores tomorrow? Please? I bet the Wonderlandians all want to catch up with each other.”

“We're here because we found the Storybook of Legends,” Alistair announced, and Bunny withdrew the book from his backpack.

~oOo~

“Now everyone can sign!” Apple exclaimed happily, and ran forward to hug Alistair. “Oh thank you Alistair! Thank you! Thank you!”

Bunny didn't look too thrilled with Apple's attention to Alistair. Not that Apple was paying any attention to that. She was too caught up in her own feelings regarding destiny and the fulfilment thereof.

“Have the girls here never seen a boy before?” she grumbled as Apple moved away, focused on the book in Headmaster Grimm's hans.

To be fair to Bunny though, Duchess had also been keen to insert herself at Alistair's side.

“Well Alistair my man,” Daring said as he stepped up, and slapped Alistair on the back. “Today, you are the real hero.”

“But,” Blondie said, “what was the Storybook of Legends doing in Wonderland?”

“It doesn't matter what happened last chapter,” Apple said blissfully. “It's back, and Alistair brought it to us.”

“Yes yes yes,” Headmaster Grimm interrupted in his angry voice. “This would all be wonderful, except that this -” he slammed shut the book, as he'd been flipping through it, “is _not_ the Storybook of Legends!”

“That seems to be a theme,” Hrafn remarked tiredly.

“This is simply a tired old book of riddles!” Headmaster Grimm declaimed, and pushed it on the person next to him without even looking. It happened to be Apple, and even if it wasn't what she'd wanted it to be, she still held onto it.

“Wow! That is hat-tastic!” Maddie cheered. “Aw, come on people! Who doesn't heart a good riddle?”

“It was the Storybook of Legends,” Alistair asserted. “It was!”

“I saw it too,” Bunny agreed.

“Not cool, my man, not cool,” Daring denounced, and moved off.

So did just about everybody else, not caring to listen to the Wonderlandian's protests.

“Forget it,” Alistair said. “They're not going to believe us. They don't know us like you guys do.”

Then it was just Apple left holding the book, and Hrafn with Nevermore on the opposite side of the courtyard.

“I,” Hrafn said firmly, “am going to find somewhere to just sit down and enjoy an ice cream cone. How does that sound to you, Nevermore? Maybe we'll even find Dexter. I haven't forgotten that I need to thank him for getting you breakfast so that I could sleep in this morning.”

She squawked her agreement. She was at that size to be too big to really call what she did 'chirping' any more, but not so big that it qualified for roaring.

~oOo~

Hrafn sat in the stands between Dexter and Faybelle, with Nevermore at his feet, as they cheered for Cerise in the Chef Showdown. They'd have cheered for Ginger as well, but she wasn't anywhere to be found. That was slightly concerning, considering she'd been so excited about the competition on Blondie's mirror-cast show earlier in the day.

Hrafn hadn't seen it, but Dexter had been the one holding the mirror-pad, and had shared his concerns with his room mate. Hrafn agreed it was unlike Ginger to miss a chance to bake treats for any reason. Nevermore was much too interested in her bowl of ice cream to be concerned, no matter how much she liked Ginger's dragon treats, and Faybelle was more interested in being allowed to pat Nevermore than she was in Ginger's absence.

It was still Faybelle who saw it though.

“Apple just cheated,” she said, eyes large with shock.

“What?!” both of the guys yelped in surprise.

“I know, right?” Faybelle returned. “Apple White, Little Miss Perfect-Future-Queen herself, just sprinkled something on Holly's tower tea cakes.”

That something turned out to be chilli powder, judging by Jack Horner's reaction.

“So much for a day off,” Hrafn sighed.

“No,” Dexter countered. “Apple cheating is not something you have to worry about. I admit that it's out of character for her, but whatever is going on can wait until tomorrow.”

“And that Ginger is missing?” Hrafn countered. “Missing people shouldn't be left un-looked-for, Dexter.”

“So tell Madame Yaga or Professor Badwolf that she's missing. You don't have to be the one to fix things all the time,” Dexter insisted. “You need a day off. Faybelle? Back me up here?”

“Hey, you know I'm against hard work and will get out of it any time I can,” Faybelle said easily, shrugging her shoulders and fluttering her wings. “It is your day off, Hrafn,” she reminded him more earnestly. “If someone comes and asks you for help, like emergency help, then fine. I don't hexpect you to turn them down like I probably would, but don't go looking for work to do. Let someone else do it for once upon a time.”

“You're right,” Hrafn agreed. “I'm normally better at delegating. It's just with Thronecoming and then Spring Fairest following so close after each other, I got used to running myself ragged. Thanks for calling me out on it.”

“Yeah,” Faybelle drawled. “You've been great at it, so much better than Apple ever was or could be, but maybe don't run for Student Council President next year. For your sake.”

~oOo~

“Okay, so we've had new Wonderlandians show up with a book that they thought was the Storybook of Legends, only for it to turn out to be a book of riddles,” Dexter said as they headed up to the school, counting off on his fingers. “Apple cheated at the Chef Showdown, Ashlynn's let herself go, badly, and my brother has misplaced his spine somewhere. Er, in the metaphorical sense.”

“Daring Charming is now Coward Charming,” Faybelle agreed.

“-as if anyone's going to believe you over me,” Apple said to Holly with a smug, unkind smirk as she pushed away from the locker she'd been leaning on. “I've just had the most wicked idea.”

“Oh! Wait for me!” Daring cried fearfully as he burst out from the locker. Whether he'd been hiding in it, or Apple had pushed him in, was presently unknown.

“She's right,” Holly whispered as she held herself. “No one will believe me if I tell them that Apple, of all people, cheated to win.”

“I will,” Cerise said as she slipped out from between where some of the lockers met an internal tree-trunk.

“Cerise!” Holly exclaimed, relieved.

“I heard every word,” Cerise asserted. “And they're not the only ones acting strange. Something is making people act totally upside-down.”

“We saw it too,” Hrafn said, and dragged Dexter and Faybelle over.

“Hrafn, your day off?” Faybelle pressed.

“Faybelle,” Hrafn said, and grabbed her hand so that he could drop a quick, light kiss on the back of it. “Thank you, but I think this qualifies as something that I might actually need to do.”

“Fine,” Faybelle agreed, cheeks rosy as she ripped her hand out of his light hold. “Okay, count me in.”

“Me too,” Dexter agreed with a sigh.

“Whatever is causing this,” Briar said as she and Hopper walked up to join them, “we'd better find out why, and fast. Hopefully before anybody does anything permanent.”

“I'm pretty sure I saw Humphrey Dumpty wearing a jet pack and roller blades on our way here,” Hopper volunteered, concerned for his room mate.

Cerise nodded. “Yeah, I saw that too. And Cedar is lying.”

“And, I'm sorry Holly, but Poppy was going a bit crazy with the scissors at the Tower Hair Salon,” Briar said. “People were leaving at a run, screaming, and mostly bald.”

Holly winced.


	8. Chapter 8

They caught up with Apple just as a giant wooden plug landed on top of the Well of Wonder.

“Oh curses,” Faybelle breathed, horrified.

Briar and Holly slid down the embankment to try and reason with Apple. Dexter, Hopper, Hrafn, and Cerise ran to the Well and tried to push the plug free. Faybelle hovered above them, pulling with all her might.

The problem was that the Well didn't stay in any place for very long. Even when it was plugged and the Wonder wasn't flowing.

It vanished, still stoppered up.

“Well, it's been fun and all, but,” Apple sniggered as Hunter and Ashlynn dropped her a rope. “Charm you later.”

“Wait for me!” a terrified Daring begged as he scurried over.

“We'll find the Well,” Cerise promised dangerously.  
“Gonna be hard,” Apple said with a cruel smile as she reached around Daring (who was clinging to her like a scared child) and into her skirts. “Without this,” she said, and waved the book that held Lizzy's magical map to the Well of Wonder. Before anybody could make a grab for it, they were pulled up and away.

“The Wonder!” Holly exclaimed fearfully as she cautiously approached a greying patch on the ground. “It's drying up!”

She bent down to touch it.

“Holly! No!” Cerise said, and pulled her away.

Holly's hand was grey. Thankfully, it wasn't spreading to the rest of her yet, though she couldn't help but stare at it fearfully.

“Without wonder, our world will cease to exist,” Cerise said as they all backed up from the spreading grey.

“Not if I can help it,” Hrafn growled.

“We,” Faybelle corrected darkly.

“We,” everybody else agreed.

~oOo~

“You again?” Apple whined. She, Daring, Hunter and Ashlynn had come back to the stage for the cooking contest in the centre of the fair grounds.

Hrafn, Dexter, Cerise, Faybelle, Holly, Briar, and Hopper had finally caught up with them again.

“Really, Hrafn. I don't know what you're so upset about,” Apple scoffed. “You never wanted to follow your destiny anyway.”

“This,” Hrafn growled as he marched up the steps to confront Apple, purple fire licking around his hair and shoulders in a visible display of his fury. “Is supposed to be _Spring Fairest_. I have worked. I have lost sleep. I have kept up all the duties of School Council President, kept up my grades, and gone straight from Beauty Pageant to Thronecoming to Spring Fairest, with added dragon-care duties, and now?”

“Ooh, someone finally got mad,” Faybelle quipped softly to Cerise.

“Ya think?” Cerise scoffed back. “Justified though,” she added.

Faybelle nodded in agreement.

“I was supposed to have a day off!” Hrafn yelled. “But nooooo!” he wailed sarcastically. “Little Miss Perfect Princess had to go and not just flip the script, you decided to set it on fire and throw it away. Little Miss Quietly Scared She Won't Get Her Destiny Because No One Knows Where Her Villain Is!” he roared, incandescent in his fury.

Everybody listening gasped.

No one, _no one_ mentioned that Apple was missing an Evil Queen to her Snow White. Everyone was fairly sure that the Evil Queen had a child before she was trapped in the Mirror Realm, but no one had ever seen them. It was one of the big mysteries of Ever After.

“Hrafn!” Cerise and Briar hissed in concerned warning, each one hurrying to his side and wrapping their arms around his, heedless of the magical fire that licked up his arms.

Hrafn took a deep breath, and the magical fire that had been dancing over his person was snuffed out.

“Sorry,” he apologised. “I shouldn't have said that.”

“We've all got our limits,” Cerise soothed, and rubbed one of his shoulders in comfort.

“You will regret that,” Apple promised darkly, an ugly scowl on her usually pretty face.

“Look around you, Miss White,” Hrafn spat back. “As the Wonder dries up, everything stops. It won't stop short of you. Give it another few minutes, and you'll be just as lifeless as month-old cut flowers.”

Minutes, it turned out, was a generous estimate. Seconds was more accurate. Hrafn's furious expression of magic had probably even sped it up, using up more of what Wonder still remained.

~oOo~

The problem with being a highly magical being... okay, so there were a few, and they varied depending on the type of magical being a person was, but the most immediately relevant one was that when the Wonder ran out, a highly magical being was a lot more affected than a non-magical being. Which meant that Faybelle was in a bad state, and Hrafn wasn't much better off. Everybody else was just listless, washed out, and slightly slumped.

Faybelle had fallen to her knees, and Hrafn was only upright because Cerise and Briar had been holding him when the Wonder drained from all of them. They weren't still holding him, technically, but they'd all sort of slumped into each other.

Hrafn was aware of nothing but a fuzzy grey world until Maddie's face and brilliantly coloured hair – coloured? But the whole world had turned grey – filled his vision. He could feel her hands on his shoulders as she begged to know what had happened. More importantly, he could feel just enough Wonder returning to him so that he could summon the will, the strength, to answer her. Wonderful wonder from a Wonderlandian who always carried their own Wonder with them. They must be immune.

“Apple... plugged... Well... of... Wonder... she... has... Lizzy's... map...”

“Apple?” Maddie repeated, surprised.

“You're too late,” Apple declared through the greyness. Of course she was less affected by the greyness, by the lack of Wonder. She wasn't highly magical like Hrafn was, and relied on it less in the day-to-day.

Through the fog, while Maddie's proximity and touch pushed it back enough that he could think, Hrafn hoped that Nevermore was alright.

“We have the Book of Riddles, can't we just destroy that?” a distant but clear voice asked. Hrafn couldn't see who it was past the greyness, and Maddie's curls were blocking a lot of what little he could see anyway, but he thought that might have been Lizzy. “Won't that stop this?!”

“We can't be sure of that,” a male voice said. Still strong. Wonderlandian then, since they weren't affected by the lack of Wonder, and that meant it had to be Alistair Wonderland. “Hrafn said that the Well of Wonder was plugged, right? That's not going to be fixed just because we broke the topsy-turvy curse, and we may need the book later. No, this is a riddle, and we need to find the answer.”

“Uh, hey, guys,” a tentative voice said. He'd never heard Kitty be tentative before, ever.

“Well, you must be loving all of this,” Lizzy said. She sounded unhappy.

“No,” Kitty denied. “No, not hexactly. I mean, I like a good joke, but this has gone too far.”

“Kitty, first things first,” Alistair said firmly. “Do you know how to reverse the topsy-turvy curse?”

Maddie moved away from Hrafn then. Released her hold on him to move closer to someone else. As she moved further away, Hrafn could feel what little Wonder she'd been able to share with him through touch drain away.

“Uh-uh,” Kitty denied, her voice becoming more distant, or less clear, or perhaps it was being drowned out. “But I know who does. Mo-”

The grey fog closed in, and Hrafn was once again insensible to the world around him.

~oOo~

The feeling of Wonder returning was a rush, and the invasion of colour a welcome one after that numbing grey fog.

“They did it!” Dexter cheered.

“That was horrible,” Cerise declared as she shook herself and straightened.

“Ugh, you don't have to tell me that,” Faybelle agreed as Briar helped her to stand.

“It worked!” Maddie cheered as she ran up to them, the rest of the Wonderlandians following behind her, also running.

“What worked?” Hrafn asked, even as he caught Maddie and returned her hug. “All I remember is a grey fog, and a few seconds of conversation with you. Something about a curse?”

They all moved to sit around a fountain, and Kitty stepped forward to explain about her mother. How she'd switched the Storybook of Legends out of Alistair's backpack and replaced it with the Riddle Book. How the cursed Riddle Book had made people act topsy-turvy – Maddie interjected that the rest of them had found out about that from a pie that Ginger baked.

“I'm glad you got my message,” Ginger said with a bright smile as she ran up to join them. “I was so worried!”

“You were worried?” Hrafn asked. “We were worried! Where have you been?”

“Uh, can I finish explaining?” Kitty asked pointedly.

“Sorry.”

There wasn't too much left to tell. Just her mother's challenge that they had to best before she would tell them how to reverse the curse.

“You ignored the game board, right?” Hrafn asked.

“Not at first,” Kitty admitted, then blinked. “Wait, how did you -?”

“Cross-Culture References back in my first semester, General Villainy, and the number of Wonderland Tea Parties I've had that Maddie's dad attended,” Hrafn explained with a shrug.

“Uh, what?” Dexter asked, confused.

“When challenging a hero to a contest, state the goal that the hero needs to achieve, present them with an obvious but incorrect method to achieve that goal, smirk smugly at them while you wait for them to either fail abysmally, or realise the loophole,” Hrafn detailed.

“Huh,” Dexter said, a thoughtful frown on his face.

“Also, I've learned to be literal rather than metaphorical with Wonderlandians, or you think I'm speaking Riddlish,” Hrafn added with a smile to Lizzy, Maddie and Kitty.

The girls all giggled. Bunny and Alistair, who didn't have much experience with Ever After people's metaphors and similes, just shared a look of confusion.

“Well, I did figure it out, and did the Cheshire disappearing trick to get to her,” Kitty explained, grinning. “So we got the answer of how to break the curse. Maddie read the last riddle in the book backwards, and that did it. Then we took the troll to where the Well of Wonder was, and he unplugged it. Bringing the Wonder back to Ever After!”

“So... you're sure that the real Storybook of Legends is still in Wonderland?” Apple asked.

“I'm positive,” Alistair confirmed.

“If it is in Wonderland,” Cerise said slowly, “how are we going to get it?”

“You know what?” Holly said, a slightly pleading expression on her face. “It's a beautiful spring day, and we're at the most spelltacular Spring Fairest ever after.”

“Which I still have yet to hexperience,” Ginger inserted.

“What do you say, we worry about Wonderland tomorrow?” Holly suggested.

“That sounds great,” Apple agreed.

“Day off,” Dexter, Faybelle, and Hrafn all said, and laughed.

“I'd better check on Nevermore though,” Hrafn said as he stood up. “She's probably confused and scared from when all the Wonder was dried up. Spell you later?”

“Oh no,” Dexter denied. “If I let you out of my sight for too long, you'll find some kind of work to get dragged into. I'm going with you.”

“Whatever after,” Hrafn said with a chuckle. “Come on then.”

~oOo~

“Hey, Hrafn?” Ashlynn called hopefully once Madame Yaga had dismissed the class.

“Ashlynn, what's up?” Hrafn answered, and waved a casual farewell to Cupid, Duchess, and Ginger, who he'd been talking to as they all packed up their things after Dance Class-ic.

“I was wondering if you'd do me a favour,” Ashlynn requested, just a little sheepishly.

“Well, that depends entirely on the favour,” Hrafn pointed out with an easy, slightly teasing smile.

“I was wondering if you could distract Headmaster Grimm for a while,” Ashlynn explained. “Since you're Student Council President until the school year ends next week.”

Hrafn raised an eyebrow at her.

“Is this something that I need to not know what's actually going on?” he asked pointedly.

Ashlynn hesitated.

“No, don't answer that,” Hrafn said and ran a hand through his hair. “Okay. Now?” he checked. “Later? When?”

“Now, would be good,” Ashlynn agreed. “Only until noon though, that's all. I promise.”

Hrafn sighed, but nodded.

“I'll bring him the student comments about the food in the Castleteria,” he decided. “Requests for different sorts of foods than are served, that sort of thing.”  
“Thanks Hrafn!” Ashlynn said quickly, and ran off.

Hrafn shook his head as he watched her go, then turned his steps towards Headmaster Grimm's office. He had enjoyed being the Student Council President this year. It was a great experience, he'd learned a lot, and gotten to know lots of interesting people. He was still looking forward to handing over the position to someone else in the new school year.

He had been working on Cupid since shortly after the Spring Fairest, quietly and subtly putting the idea into her head that she'd suit the role. She straddled the Royal-Rebel debate very handily, as her own legacy (which she was quite fond of) meant that she had to encourage people to follow their hearts – even if that meant not following their stories.

Actually, dragging Cupid along with him to meet the Headmaster would help her get a feel for the position, as well as doing that favour for Ashlynn.

“Hey, Cupid!”

~oOo~

“You want how many bouquets of flowers?” the confused florist checked.

“Twenty,” Hrafn confirmed. “And another sixty flower crowns.”

“All to be delivered to different people?”

“That's right.”

“With cards, so the girls you're sending these flowers to all know they're from you?” the florist pressed.

Hrafn chuckled.

“Yes,” he said. “Well, except for one bouquet, which is going to be from my room mate, and he's going to give it to the girl it's for. That bouquet needs to get delivered to him.”

“Some reason you can't do that yourself?” the florist asked curiously.

“The only flower that hasn't wilted in my hand was one that was cursed so that if you smelled it, you fell asleep,” Hrafn explained, his voice flat and frustrated.

“Gotcha,” the florist said with a sympathetic wince. “Um... Is there some kinda spellebration happening up at the school that I don't know about?”

“No,” Hrafn denied. “It's just the end of the school year, and I wanted to give flowers to some of my friends.”

“That sounds nice, but don't blame me if they all come after you for this,” the florist warned. “You put your name on those cards, you know that it won't matter that you're not doing the giving yourself.”

“I know that,” Hrafn promised. “It shouldn't be a problem anyway, since the flowers are...”

~oOo~

“Thank you for the flowers, Hrafn,” Lizzy said, a small smile on her face and one of the blooms from the bouquet he'd sent her tucked into her hair.

“They're beautiful,” Duchess agreed. She also had one of the flowers from her bouquet tucked into her hair. “No one's ever sent me flowers before.”

Dahlias came in a wide range of colours, so there hadn't been any problem in getting vibrantly red ones for Lizzy (that is, dahlias that were red, as opposed to the flowers that were called 'red dahlias' and looked completely different and had a likewise different meaning) and pale purple ones for Duchess.

“Nor I,” Lizzy added. “The card, with the meaning of the flowers, I thought was a particularly nice touch.”

“I'm glad you like them,” Hrafn said, “and it was my pleasure to buy you both flowers.”

“Why did you?” Duchess asked, curious on that point.

“Because I could, because it's the end of the school year, because you have both been wonderful friends to me since I met you at the beginning of the school year,” Hrafn listed off, smiling at them both. “Mostly because I wanted to give you flowers.”

“You mean, you wanted to give everyone flowers,” Darling corrected as she joined them at the table Hrafn had chosen to eat breakfast at in the Castleteria. “Girls all over school have been receiving deliveries of bouquets or flower crowns all day, each one with a card saying what the flowers mean, too.”

“Do you not like your flowers, Darling?” Hrafn asked, worried.

Darling laughed, shaking her head.

“On the contrary, I love them,” she asserted. “So does Rosabella.”

“What kind of flowers did Hrafn give you, Darling?” Lizzy asked eagerly.

“Rosabella and I both got gladioli,” Darling said easily. “For strength of character, honour, and conviction. We're both quite flattered,” she added to Hrafn. “Though we had a bit of a debate over whether my white ones or Rosabella's yellow ones were prettier.”

“How did you resolve that?” Duchess probed, ever after a bit of gossip.

“We put them all into one vase together, and agreed they looked best that way,” Darling answered with a light laugh. “But what do your flowers mean? They're very pretty.”

“Dahlias for elegance and dignity,” Lizzy declared proudly. “I will have to talk to my mother about adding some to the royal gardens some day. I know she is very fond of her roses, but I think I quite like the symbolism of the dahlia flower more.”

“I'm definitely going to have to get some planted near the Enchanted Lake,” Duchess said.

~oOo~

“You sent Briar flowers?” Hopper asked, hands on hips and an angry frown on his face. It was Grimmnastics class, more running, but started in small groups, so people had a chance to sit on the bleachers and talk until Coach Gingerbreadman called them to take their places on the starting line.

“Hydrangeas,” Hrafn answered with a nod.

“Hrafn! You know how I feel about Briar,” Hopper accused. “Why would you do that?”

“Hopper, do you know what hydrangeas mean?” Hrafn asked.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Hopper countered.

“They mean _heartfelt gratitude for being understood_ ,” Hrafn said. “You know she saw what my legacy was, back during Thronecoming when we all dived into the Storybook of Legends in Heritage Hall. They're not romantic flowers, Hopper.”

“Oh,” he said softly. “Okay then. Um. Could you give me some advice on what kind of flowers I should give Briar?”

“Well, you know not to send her more pond weed, and she really doesn't need more roses, so...” Hrafn paused to think about it, recalling all the flowers he'd picked out to send to other girls, all based on the little book he'd stumbled across in a dusty corner of the library a couple of weeks after Spring Fairest.

For that matter, the flowers he had considered and discarded as not quite right.

“Red tulips and blue violets,” Hrafn advised.

“What do they mean?” Hopper asked.

“Red tulips for undying love, blue violets for faithfulness,” Hrafn explained.

“And what do proteas mean?” Hunter asked, just a little sharply from where he was sitting the next row down from Hopper and Hrafn's little confrontation. “You gave a bunch to Ashlynn, and you know we're actually dating, not almost-dating like Hopper and Briar.”

“Courage,” Hrafn answered simply.

Satisfied with that, Hunter nodded and turned back to watching the runners on the track.

~oOo~

“The big news all over the school today is that Hrafn has ordered for flower arrangements to be made up and delivered, left right and centre!” Blondie reported on her mirror-cast during lunch, one hand wrapped around her microphone while the other arm cradled the bunch of irises she'd received that morning.

“And not only did he send us flowers, he also wrote us cards,” Blondie said with a smile, “saying how much he valued our friendship, and detailing the meanings of the flowers he had chosen for us! My irises mean 'good news', and they certainly were! These blue blossoms are just right for me, but let's talk to some of the other people Hrafn has sent flowers to.”

Blondie started with her own room mate, and Cupid was happy to show off the lily-of-the-valley that Hrafn had sent to her, and she liked the things they represented.

“I think everybody knows that I'm a big fan of roses, and they are considered the flowers of love and romance,” Cupid said, “but these mean sweetness, humility, returning happiness, and trust. How could I not fall for a flower that means all of those things?”

Blondie next talked to Ginger and Melody, who had each received borage and phlox respectively, for courage and harmony. Ginger's flower was particularly interesting to Blondie because she knew that Ashlynn had received a different flower that had the same meaning. This was something that happened again when Blondie interviewed Holly and Poppy, and then Cerise and Cedar.

Cerise had been given a large bunch of red daisies, and Hrafn had detailed in the card that accompanied them that while daisies in general meant things like innocence, loyal love, purity, faith, cheer, simplicity, and dissembling (all of which he also meant to varying degrees), that red ones specifically meant beauty unknown to the possessor (which he meant especially). All of which was, Blondie and Cerise agreed, quite a compliment to be packed into just one little bouquet of cheerful-looking flowers. Cerise's room mate Cedar, on the other hand, had received a bunch of purple and white flowers called campanula, which had the much simpler meaning of gratitude. A meaning shared by the sweet pea that Holly and Poppy had been given, and which Poppy had helped Holly weave into her very long hair.

Kitty and Maddie were both completely thrilled with the bunches of colourful coreopsis they had been sent. Which was appropriate, since the flower meant always cheerful. Bunny Blanc shyly showed off her wisteria, and even read aloud the card that Hrafn had sent with it.

“Wisteria is a flower of welcoming, and so I welcome you. When meeting a new friend from Wonderland, what else could I possibly do? In the short time since you arrived from Wonderland, I have found you to be a most wonderful friend. From Hrafn,” Bunny read, a small, pleased smile on her face.

“If you'll pardon my saying so, I think that poem was just right,” Blondie declared.

“I think so too,” Bunny agreed. “I really do like these flowers very much. They're so beautiful. I mean, the flowers that Hrafn sent to my room mate are even more amazing than the ones he sent to me, but I'm perfectly happy with the flowers I got.”

“Ooh! What flowers did your room mate get?” Blondie asked eagerly before she blinked and laughed at herself. “For that matter, who is your room mate?”

“I'm sharing a room with Faybelle,” Bunny answered easily. “Um, but, she's a little embarrassed by her flowers, so I think I'd better not tell you what they are.”

Blondie conceded that, and went to interview Apple instead.

“Oh, my,” Blondie said, a little awed. “These are beautiful!”

“They really are,” Apple agreed as she removed another one from the paper-wrapped bouquet and carefully settled it into a water-filled vase. The flowers were amaryllis, the petals looking like trumpets of bright red. They were certainly a spectacular bouquet.

“I think I speak for everyone when I say that the question on everybody's lips is what is the meaning behind these flowers,” Blondie pressed. “After all, every other flower arrangement Hrafn has given out has more going for them than just their beauty, they have to have a deeper meaning.”

“I think they're kind of an apology, actually,” Apple explained softly as she stroked the petals of one of the flowers. “Back during Spring Fairest, a few of us got cursed, and we weren't behaving like ourselves. Hrafn said some things that... well, it's done now. Hrafn's card said that amaryllis mean pride, and he gave them to me because I'm so proud of my story and my Happily Ever After.”


	9. Chapter 9

The day after all the other flowers had been delivered, one last bouquet was brought to the school and given to a student.

“Hrafn, why have I just received a delivery of flowers?” Dexter asked cautiously as he stepped back into their dorm room.

“Read the card, Dexter,” Hrafn instructed, just a little smugly.

“Dearest Cupid – wait, what?” Dexter yelped. “If these are for Cupid, why did I get them? And I thought you gave Cupid flowers yesterday?”

“I did,” Hrafn confirmed absently as he turned back to his thronework assignment. “Keep reading.”

“Dearest Cupid, plumeria for perfection, and so they are for you... Hrafn -”

“Keep reading,” Hrafn interrupted.

“They also represent new beginnings, and if you would agree, please let a new chapter begin for you and me,” Dexter grumbled through. “The primroses, I suppose, are a bit ambitious, but eternal love between you and I, is within my wishes. Really Hrafn?”

“Move your thumb off the signatory,” Hrafn advised with a chuckle.

“Please accept these flowers, and these tickets to see a movie with me at the Multi-Hex Theatre tonight, from Dexter. Wait. Me?!” Dexter yelped.

“That's why I had them deliver the flowers to you,” Hrafn explained. “Wouldn't want them to go straight to Cupid and then you not show up for your date with her.”

“You're setting me up with Cupid?” Dexter asked, his voice suddenly and sharply an octave higher than usual. Which meant he was starting to panic.

“Do you honestly have a problem with that?” Hrafn teased. “You talk to Cupid all the time. You found out about True Hearts Day and helped her spellebrate it, just because you knew that was the sort of thing she would like.”

“I, uh, I guess I did...” Dexter murmured, and rubbed the back of his neck as he remembered that.

“You hand-fed her a piece of cake,” Hrafn reminded him.

“What? When?” Dexter demanded, confused.

“The day that Jack Horner showed up to try Ginger's cooking,” Hrafn said.

“I did?” Dexter asked, confused. Then blushed as he remembered. “Oh, I did.”

“You're cute together,” Hrafn pointed out. “Tickets for the movie are in that envelope,” he added, and pointed to where a white envelope was sitting on top of Dexter's chest of drawers. “Movie's at eight. I suggest you pick her up at seven-thirty.”

“What?! Eight... seven-thirty... _tonight_?” Dexter yelped. Definitely panicking.

“Less time for you to work yourself up,” Hrafn said, and pushed himself away from his desk as he rolled his eyes. “But enough time for you to get changed before the movie. Go and give Cupid the flowers. Read straight off the card if you don't know what to say for yourself. I've asked Ginger to make a box of snacks for you two to share, and she'll bring them by, here, just before dinner. The only thing you have to remember for yourself is to be there, breathe like you're not panicking, hold Cupid's hand, and buy a jumbo drink with two straws, okay?”

“Okay,” Dexter agreed. “But what if she says no?”

“She won't,” Hrafn promised. “Go already! I'm going to take Nevermore out for a while.”

~oOo~

“We need to talk.”

Four words that in combination were worrying to hear any time, but much more so when they were in the double-toned cadence of an angry Faybelle Thorn. Her usual pleasant alto, augmented by a dark bass, and with an unaccountable echo was... well, it was definitely something to set the hairs on the back of the neck on end.

Hrafn gestured for Faybelle to take the free seat at his table. The Beanstalk Bakery didn't make sweets as good as Ginger's, but she was already doing him a favour baking for Dexter and Cupid's date. The bakery did much better snacks than Hocus Latte though, even if the drinks weren't quite as good. The real draw that the Beanstalk Bakery had over Hocus Latte, for Hrafn, was that it was completely outdoors – which meant it was better for Nevermore.

The young dragon was currently lying under the table across his feet. There had been a few, er, side-effects, from when Apple had plugged the Well of Wonder. Or possibly from when the Well was unplugged and the Wonder had come back. Whatever the exact cause had been, Nevermore was now able to make herself bigger or smaller at will. A very useful trick, as a fully-grown dragon wouldn't have fit in the dorm rooms or the halls of Ever After High nearly so easily.

Oh, it was still possible, the halls of the school were big enough for Tiny after all, but dragons were more wings and tails than they were just one pair of very big feet. Not to mention the occasional (thankfully rare) case of combustible hiccups, which were much easier to manage from a baby-sized dragon than an adult-sized one.

Nevermore lifted her head from where she'd been half-dozing and chirruped at Faybelle in greeting.

“Yeah yeah, hi to you too,” Faybelle said, that intimidating double-toned cadence gone from her speech, as she patted Nevermore's jewelled head and sat down.

“Is this about the flowers I sent you?” Hrafn asked. “I saw on Blondie's mirror-cast that Bunny said you were embarrassed by them.”

“You bet this is about those flowers!” Faybelle snapped, “and of course I was embarrassed! Seriously Hrafn? Amaryllis?”

“I thought they suited you,” he explained with a shrug and a soft smile.

Faybelle glared at him.

“You got me the same flowers as Apple! I don't mind the meaning, but you couldn't have found something with, oh, I don't know, _thorns_ maybe?” she countered.

“Stinging nettle, perhaps,” Hrafn suggested. “It means life and death, which might suit the daughter of the Dark Fairy, but it also means protection.”

“Which doesn't,” Faybelle allowed with a sneer.

“Gorse means love in all seasons,” Hrafn continued, and his smile stretched a little at that.

“What?!” Faybelle yelped, eyes wide as she leaned back in her chair. Not quite enough to make it over-balance, but very nearly.

“I thought that might be inappropriate as well,” Hrafn agreed. “There's the thorn-apple, which means disguise, but that isn't your thing.”

“No, it's not,” Faybelle said with a sigh. “Any other thorny flowers?”

“Thistles and roses,” Hrafn supplied with a shrug. “I didn't want to give anybody roses. I think they're a bit over-done. Thistles mean nobility and warning, which might suit you, from a certain perspective.”

“So why didn't you get me those?” Faybelle demanded with a huff.

“I thought the amaryllis suited you better,” Hrafn stated simply, “and besides, I could get them in a colour that matched your hair. If I got you thistles, you'd be stuck with a too-bright purple. The flower shop was fairy well stocked, but they weren't carrying any blue thistles.”

“Yeah,” Faybelle drawled, unimpressed. “See, I can't tell if that's meant to be insult or flattery. Partly the meaning, but also that you got the same flowers, admittedly in a different colour, for Apple White.”

“I'd never dream of insulting you,” Hrafn promised.

Nevermore chirruped her agreement, and nuzzled Faybelle's knee in agreement, drawing both Faybelle's and Hrafn's attention away from each other just as a rabbit with a messenger bag hopped over. The rabbit withdrew an envelope from his bag, and held it up to Hrafn.

“Thanks,” he murmured as he accepted the envelope. Once he'd confirmed his name on the front of the envelope, he flipped it over to check the seal.

“Just open it, Hrafn,” Faybelle told him with a roll of her eyes.

“Who wouldn't kill to be your plus one to the Blue Moon Forest Fest!” Apple yelled excitedly from where she was sitting with Ashlynn, a few tables over, effectively capturing the attention of everybody at the Beanstalk Bakery and a few people who were just passing on the street.

Even Nevermore perked up.

“Is it really that big of a deal around here?” Hrafn asked, confused, as he opened the envelope in his hands.

“It's only the most hexclusive party ever after. You can't even find it without an invitation,” Faybelle explained. Then she registered the invitation in Hrafn's hands. “No. Way,” she said as she stared at the card. One that looked identical to the one Ashlynn was holding as people crowded around her. “You got an invitation too?”

Nevermore whipped around to stare at him, and shrank down to her smallest form before she jumped up onto his lap. Being tiny made her eyes look bigger, which she took full advantage of as she stared pleadingly up at him.

“I grew up in the forest,” Hrafn reminded Faybelle (and the interested crowd now growing around him, rather like the crowd around Ashlynn), even as he chuckled at Nevermore's antics and stroked the top of her head before he put her back down on the ground. “Far from any human interaction except my parents. I've been invited every year since I was... ten, I think,” he explained, and looked down at the little yellow tickets that were folded into the invitation. When he looked up again, both Faybelle and Nevermore (who had jumped up into Faybelle's arms) were giving him pleading, hopeful looks. They weren't the only ones either.

Then the coffee machine exploded, effectively washing everybody and everything out of the Beanstalk Bakery. Including them.

~oOo~

“So, wait, you're actually friends with the Fairy Queen?” Faybelle asked as they walked over to the Glass Slipper. A little magic had them dry again and all of the spilled coffee cleaned up.

“She helped me get control over the magical powers that I inherited from my mother,” Hrafn explained. “If it weren't for her, I'd probably still be having problems.”

“What kind of problems?” Faybelle pressed, curious.

“Oh, like, vaporising a broken mirror-pad rather than fixing it,” Hrafn suggested for an example with a depreciating chuckle. “Or an attempt at a duplication spell duplicating itself, and then doing something else completely while I tried to get it back under control.”

“Wow,” Faybelle said, impressed. “But you've got such spelltacular control over your magic now... wait. If you inherited your magic powers from your mother... why didn't she teach you how to use them?”

“Oh she did,” Hrafn was quick to correct. “But she wasn't interested in useful spells like fixing broken mirror-pads, and then she couldn't be around any more. Since I was living in the forest while I was throwing around all this magic, trying to get a handle on it, I came to the Fairy Queen's attention.”

“And then she started teaching you,” Faybelle surmised.

“With a little persuasion from my dad, yeah,” Hrafn agreed, and held the door open for Faybelle and Nevermore to precede him into the shoe shop. “Miladies,” he said with a bow.

Nevermore stretched her neck up and strutted through the door first. Faybelle, snickering a little at both Nevermore's attitude and Hrafn's behaviour, followed.

Hrafn had just stepped inside behind them when Sparrow burst out from under a pile of shoe-boxes, slamming away at his guitar and screaming something about Jack and Jill.

“How did you even get in here?” Ashlynn asked.

“I was just shopping for a lady's shoes,” Sparrow said, not really answering the question, as he continued to play his guitar and dance backwards out through the door.

“Okay, now I'm curious to know who Sparrow Hood, of all people, was shoe shopping for,” Hrafn declared, twisting around to see if he could see what direction Sparrow went and if he met anybody.

“Oh, hi guys,” Ashlynn greeted. “What's up?” she asked nervously.

“Getting ready for tonight,” Hrafn said, turning back to the shop interior and brandished his own invitation to the Blue Moon Forest Fest. “No pressure from any of us on it though, promise.”

Ashlynn sighed in relief.

“Thanks,” she said. “Not that I'd be against going with either of you -”

Nevermore chirped, offended at being overlooked.

“Sorry, Nevermore. With _any_ of you,” Ashlynn corrected herself with a smile. “I'm just feeling kinda pressured about the whole thing.”

Hunter wrapped his arms around his girlfriend.

“Relax, Ashlynn,” he said gently as he held her. “The perfect person will turn up. You're gonna have a great time, I'm sure. Catch you later, Sweetie,” Hunter added before he gave her one more squeeze and left the Glass Slipper.

“Boyfriend has other commitments tonight?” Faybelle guessed, not totally unsympathetically.

“Horror film with some of the guys, apparently,” Ashlynn explained with a sigh. “Hrafn, how did you decide who to ask to go with you?”

“I was there first,” Faybelle answered with a smirk.

“She was,” Hrafn agreed with a laugh.

“That's it?” Ashlynn pressed, a slightly desperate, distressed expression on her face.

“I knew it was about that time,” Hrafn explained, “and I'd already decided to myself that I'd ask whoever I came across first of Faybelle or Cerise.”

“Woah,” Faybelle said softly. “So it really was just that I was there first? Talk about a lucky break for me!”

“Why Faybelle or Cerise? I mean, if you don't mind me asking,” Ashlynn enquired, genuinely curious. No doubt hoping for some guidance for her own choice of who to invite to the festival.

“I want to introduce Faybelle to the Fairy Queen,” Hrafn said, “and Cerise is in the forest even more often than you are, so I'm sure she'd love the Forest Fest, even if she'd never so much as hint that she'd like to go.”

“That's a good point,” Ashlynn recognised thoughtfully. “Any idea where I could find Cerise?”

Hrafn pulled out his mirror-phone, scrolled through to Cerise's number, and pressed 'call' before he handed it over to Ashlynn.

“We're just going to find some new shoes for Faybelle to wear out tonight,” Hrafn said softly as the phone rang.

Faybelle wore boots normally, and anything they couldn't take, she could fly over without a problem, but this was a party. Not only was it a party, but it was a party in the forest in the evening, which definitely necessitated new shoes. And probably a new outfit to go with them.

~oOo~

They weren't the only students going to the Blue Moon Forest Fest. Melody Piper, Briar, Bo-Peep's daughter, Mrs Her Majesty The White Queen's daughter, and a few others were also recipients of invitations. Blondie was especially excited that she had been invited to cover the Forest Fest for her mirror-cast show, and had invited Poppy O'Hair as her plus-one.

Of course, human guests would still definitely be out numbered by fairy attendees, but that was to be expected.

“So, you've been to this thing before, right?” Faybelle checked as the group of invitees and plus-ones gathered. “How do we actually find the Blue Moon Forest Fest?”

“Technically, it finds you,” Hrafn said.

“The invitation says to just head into the Enchanted Forest, and the party will lead us to it,” Ashlynn read off, scanning her own invitation for any hint of directions.

“Odd,” Cerise commented. “Cool, but odd.”

“Like I said, the Forest Fest finds you, not the other way around,” Hrafn said, but he was smiling enough to make people wonder if he wasn't related to Kitty Cheshire. “Lucky for all present, I've been often enough, and was fortunate enough to learn some of my magic from the Fairy Queen herself before I enrolled in Ever After High, that I've learned a short-cut. We will still need to be at least a few layers of trees away from the edge of the forest, though.”

“Uh, short-cut through the woods?” Cerise paraphrased incredulously.

“Potentially off the path, even,” Hrafn confirmed with a teasing chuckle.

“Well I'm game!” Briar declared.

Roughly ten trees into the Enchanted Forest and away from the main path, Hrafn started knocking on trunks as he passed them. One knock to the first, two to the second, and three to the third. Four to the fourth, which was when everybody caught on that he was doing it at all, and on the fifth he rapped out a short ditty (shave and a hair cut), rather than just evenly timed knocks. Two knocks answered back, apparently from within the tree, and then leaf-covered branches dipped low before parting like a curtain.

“The tickets in the invitations help the Forest Fest find you,” Hrafn said as everybody stared in amazement at the party. “If you're not at an easily recognisable location, and you know how to knock on the front door, then you get found that much faster.”

“It is so good to see you again, Hrafn,” the Fairy Queen said as she fluttered over. With a smile, she greeted and welcomed everybody to the Blue Moon Forest Fest. “All of you may enter as my special guests,” she added with a smile.

“Alright!”

“Woohoo!”

“Time to party!”

Even Nevermore chirruped loudly as she charged out onto the dance floor, and watching a juvenile-sized dragon try and dance was definitely something to see.

“All this niceness is so going to trash my reputation,” Faybelle grumbled as she hesitated on the threshold of the party.

“Worry about that later,” Hrafn suggested. “Come and meet the Fairy Queen.”

“I guess I can always be bad again tomorrow,” Faybelle allowed with a laugh that was a little bit nervous but mostly pleased, even if she was a little shy and bashful about it. “But I never want you to send me flowers like you did, ever again, got it? I won't be wooed. You're too much of a nice guy to be even close to my type, no matter how flattering the attention is.”

“As you say,” Hrafn agreed, a crooked smile on his face. “I promise to use the break to shake any romantic notions I might possibly have had of you, out of my head,” he added solemnly, though he couldn't quite get all of the smile off his face. She was a good friend, and he enjoyed teasing her by flirting with her, but Faybelle wasn't the one he was romantically interested in.

“Good.”

~oOo~

“How'd your date with Cupid go?” Hrafn asked when he finally got back to his dorm room after the Forest Fest, a tiny Nevermore asleep in his arms.

“It went great!” Dexter enthused – but quietly, in deference to the sleeping dragon. “She loved the flowers, and the movie was great, and Ginger's treats were delicious, and -”  
“I get it,” Hrafn laughed softly, and set Nevermore into her little nest in a corner on his side of the room. “You and Cupid both had a good time. I'm glad.”

“Thanks for setting it all up, Hrafn,” Dexter said.

“You're welcome. You're on your own next time though,” Hrafn quipped. “I'm not organising all of your dates with Cupid for you.”

“No, that's okay,” Dexter agreed with a nervous laugh. “I think... I think I can handle it, now that I know how it's done, and that I don't have to be nervous...”

“Good.”

“So, uh, are you... staying at Ever After High for the summer term?” Dexter asked. “Or are you going to go home for the full break before the new school year starts?”

“Going home,” Hrafn said. “Dad misses me, and honestly, I miss him too. It's been great here, a real off-the-page hexperience, and I want to tell my dad about it in person. I want him to meet Nevermore as well,” he added, a stroked the sleeping dragon's jewelled head.

“I guess that makes sense,” Dexter agreed.

“I want to talk to him about changing direction a bit in my subject choices for next year, too,” Hrafn said as he moved back to his desk. “Since I've had a year of taking classes, and I've been able to talk to other people about what the classes that I'm not taking are like...”

“I wish I could talk to my parents about my classes,” Dexter said with a frustrated sigh. “I really want to be allowed to drop Wooing.”

“You want to drop Wooing that much, then tell your parents you've got a girlfriend,” Hrafn suggested. “I'm sure Cupid will teach you all about how to woo, and very happily, because she'll be the one benefiting.”

Dexter chuckled, but acknowledged that it was a good idea.

“I'm probably going to be told to drop a few of the more academic courses,” Hrafn continued with a depressed huff. “I loved Crownculus, and Chemythtry, and Experimental Fairy Math, and Throne Economics, and Hexonomics, and Science and Sorcery... but I'd bet Dad's going to tell me that I've had enough time with those courses, and I should be doing more things like... like... Woodshop, or Metalwork.”

“Why?” Dexter asked, confused.

“Because whatever my story is, it's almost certainly not going to be either of my parents' legacies, and Dad wants me to be able to support myself in a worst-case scenario,” Hrafn explained. “Which means, to his thinking, being able to make things that other people will want to buy, like furniture or swords, in order to support our kingdom's economy. I'm probably going to be told that I should drop Dance Class-ic as well.”

“But you love Dance Class-ic!” Dexter objected. “And things like Crownculus and Chemythry are really important!”

“And I had this year to pack in as many different classes as I could, to try everything,” Hrafn said, and flopped down onto his bed. “Next year, I've got to focus more on just being practical. I'll be able to keep up a couple of magic-focused classes, for obvious reasons, and with Nevermore for a constant companion, I'll definitely be staying in Beast Training and Care. Most of the subjects around the castle aren't human, anyway. I'm not sure what will happen with the Hero and Villain classes, but I'll definitely try to keep on taking both.”

“Why are you taking both?” Dexter asked. “I know, I know. Your legacy can't be your story and it's all complicated, but you didn't have to keep up both subjects after the first semester. You could have picked just one, or even dropped both of them to make room for other classes.”

“Because, just like Dance Class-ic and all those really advanced maths classes, I like them,” Hrafn revealed. “I'd kinda like to go back to taking Cross-Cultural References too, but like I said, I think Dad's going to want me to take classes that he thinks will be more useful to me in worst-case scenarios.”

“You could just... say you'll take those classes, and then enrol in something else,” Dexter offered carefully. “I mean, your dad isn't on the teaching staff here to know otherwise.”

Dexter's father taught Advanced Wooing, which was why Dexter absolutely could not get out of that class.

“Maybe,” Hrafn allowed, “but even if my mother hasn't been a physical presence in my life for years? She still always knows what I'm up to, and she'll tell Dad if I'm not behaving up to standards.”

“How can she know?”

“I got my magic from her,” Hrafn said simply, not really explaining the details, but leaving facts open to interpretation.

Dexter winced.

“Are you going to be okay, going home for the break?” he checked.

“Eh? Oh, I'll be fine!” Hrafn asserted easily. “I'm just... I love my parents, I _do_ , but Mother has definite opinions that I don't always agree with, and Dad's great but he's not hexactly spellbound by pure academics like Experimental Fairy Math. Dad is big on being practical about things.”

“If you're sure.”

“I'll be fine, Dexter,” Hrafn promised, a wry twist to his lips. “Who knows, I might even enjoy the classes Dad will want me to take. Either way, I'll be right back here in the new school year, grilling you on if you've taken Cupid on any more dates during the break.”

Dexter laughed.


	10. Chapter 10

The new school year began with a class excursion to the Legacy Orchard. It was a bit of a hike from the school, but it was worth it just to see Cerise call out Daring for proclaiming himself 'fastest' when he touched the gate of the Legacy Orchard before Hunter or Sparrow.

She, of course, had been up there and waiting for everybody else to catch up for something like fifteen minutes.

“Students,” Headmaster Grimm said as he and his brother unlocked the gates. “I know I don't have to remind you to be on your best behaviour as we enter -” the gates swung open, “- the Legacy Orchard!”

There were a few appreciative cheers.

“Oh how hexciting!” Apple exclaimed as they all headed in.

“Today, you'll be able to read yearbooks of students from untold generations who came before,” Giles explained dramatically.

“Untold, huh?” Hrafn mused as he wandered deeper into the Legacy Orchard. “And before what, I wonder.”

“Don't let Headmaster Grimm hear you saying things like that,” Dexter warned softly, but he was smiling too.

“I'm not the President of the Student Council any more,” Hrafn pointed out with a grin. “I don't have to get along with him.”

“Cupid's really hexcited about running this year,” Dexter said with a fond smile. “She's been going over all the notes you gave her, and coming up with new ideas of her own...”

“It hasn't cut in on date time, I hope?” Hrafn checked.

Dexter, blushing, shook his head.

“No, we've been... we've had time to...”

“Convince your parents you can drop Wooing?” Hrafn suggested, smirking just a little bit.

“Yes, thank goodness,” Dexter sighed. “What about you? How did the subject of classes go with your dad?”

“Woodshop and Metal Work have been added to my course-load, but Dance Class-ic hasn't been cut,” Hrafn said as he pushed aside a vine and its dangling yearbook, still walking deeper into the Legacy Orchard. “Bewitching Song is now one of my two magic-focused classes, and I'm taking just plain Mathematics, rather than any of the other, more specialised courses. Apart from that? Advanced Villainy, Hero Training, Grimmnastics, Beast Training and Care, and Good Magic Mastery.”

“Wow, that's...” Dexter floundered a moment as he tried to find the right words.

Hrafn filled in the silence.

“Actually pretty balanced, and fewer classes than I was taking when I started last year. There were some compromises, but I'm glad that I get to keep doing some kind of maths, as well as Dance Class-ic. Both of my parents were all for me continuing with both Hero Training and Advanced Villainy, so I didn't have to fight to keep those. Bewitching Song was a compromise class...”

“What did you give up in exchange for that one?” Dexter asked.

“Actually, that was a bit more of a trade-off between my parents, than any consideration to me,” Hrafn corrected. “Because Dad wanted me to take Woodshop and Metal Work, and those class times clashed with Magicology and Hexonomics, and my mother wanted me to take another magic course besides Good Magic Mastery. Bewitching Song was the only one that fit. Now... what year do you think this Story Tree was planted?” Hrafn asked, changing the subject and drawing both his own and his room mate's attention to what they were supposed to be doing.

Dexter reached up for a book, gently pulled it and the vine it hung from lower for easier reading, and had a look.

“This is pretty cool,” Dexter said, surprised, as he turned the pages.

~oOo~

“Attention students!” Giles called, and with two soft claps, sent the books on their vines back into the trees. Which said interesting things about either the Story Trees themselves, or Giles's own magical prowess. “I hope you have all had a story-filled field trip,” he said, once they had all gathered back at the gate to the Legacy Orchard.

There were a lot of murmurs of agreement, and one clear “It was so much fun!” over the others.

“Students,” Headmaster Grimm said. “At the end of the school year, you will plant a new seed in this orchard. An e-corn,” he declared, withdrawing the object in question from an inner pocket of his jacket. “That will grow into the newest Story Tree.”

“Representing the stories and adventures of your class,” Giles added.

“Who will volunteer to be the editor for this class's very special yearbook?” Headmaster Grimm asked.

As if the question even needed asking. Of course their class's mirror-cast reporter and budding journalist was the perfect fit for the -

“Oh I- I volunteer!” Apple said eagerly as she hurried to the front of the crowd.

-job. Damn. Blondie, with her 'just right' thing going on, would have an even spread of various funny, embarrassing, and cool stories. With Apple in charge of things, there would be no embarrassing stories in their yearbook, definitely no embarrassing pictures, and probably not even any funny ones. Apple was by far too dedicated to Happily Ever After and Destinies and 'Perfect' to properly and fairly record all aspects of their year.

This certainty left Hrafn with the question of whether or not he cared enough to do something about it, and whether that 'something' would be personal, or delegated. He had the time now, after all. He wasn't the Student Council President any more – Cupid was gearing up to begin her own campaign there, with elections to be held in a bit over a week. He had fewer academic classes, which meant a much smaller stack of assignments and tests to worry about. He'd also decided, after a year on the team, that while Bookball was fun, he wasn't going to try out for the team again this year.

Which just left caring for Nevermore, and she needed a lot less care as she grew older and figured out how to take care of herself. She was a smart dragon. She definitely would be able to take care of herself, and probably a lot sooner than Hrafn would be entirely happy with – after all, once Nevermore could take care of herself completely, what was to keep her from flying off and leaving Hrafn behind? Nothing, except that maybe she'd come to like him as much as he liked her.

“Hrafn?” Dexter called softly, a hand on his shoulder. “Deep thoughts?”

“Forty-two,” Hrafn answered as he shook himself back to the present. “Sorry Dexter. I'm here.”

“That's great, but we're all leaving the Legacy Orchard now,” Dexter said, and pushed his friend and room mate into walking.

“Thanks.”

“You're not thrilled about Apple being in charge of the yearbook,” Dexter noted softly as they headed down. It wasn't a question.

“I'm half-way imagining the five-page spread on _Apple White's Royal Birthday Cake Bake-Off_ ,” Hrafn answered with an unhappy twist tucked in one corner of his mouth.

“She wouldn't,” Dexter said, trying for reassuring, but his own doubts on the matter crept in, and he fell a bit short of the mark.

Hrafn just shrugged.

“So... what are you going to do?” Dexter asked.

“That's just it,” Hrafn said, somewhere between huffing and sighing. “I don't know if I even want to, if it's worth it. Running against her in the election? That was worth it. Apple would have completely marginalised a large portion of the student population, without even thinking about it, with all of her Royal-this and Royal-that, and nothing else. But this? A bunch of stories that are only accessed once a year, and maybe not even read that often... But still a representation of us to the generations to come, and if Apple's in charge, then it probably won't be an entirely accurate representation. She is all about the image.”

“And you're not,” Dexter quipped.

“No,” Hrafn agreed, “I'm not.”

~oOo~

“So, first bake sale,” Hrafn said to Cupid, a smile on his face. “How do you feel?”

“Pretty confident,” Cupid answered, a smile on her face. “I worked with Ginger and the rest of Cooking Class-ic to make sure they'd have all the things they needed to make the number of gingerbread houses we'd need, which we figured out based on the numbers you gave me from last year...”

“You did great, Cupid,” Dexter asserted, and twined their hands together.

“I'm lucky,” Cupid asserted. “Hrafn gave me great notes on how to run these things. Compared to what Hrafn was up to last year, I have maybe half the work to do.”

“Good,” Dexter said firmly. “I saw him run himself ragged doing all those things last year, I don't want you to end up as worn out as he was.”

“Right here and can hear you,” Hrafn reminded them, amused. “But that's why I gave you all that stuff, Cupid. So that you wouldn't have to work as hard as I did when I was figuring it all out from nothing. Next year, when it's someone else's turn, you can pass your notes on to them.”

“I will. Want to see how things are going in the kitchen?” Cupid offered.

“We'd either get underfoot or put to work,” Hrafn pointed out. “I know how this works, remember.”

Cupid giggled.

“How about we just stay out here, out of the way,” Dexter suggested.

“How about I leave you two alone?” Hrafn offered wryly. “Anyway, good job, Cupid. I'll see you around.”

“Bye!”

~oOo~

“You know...”

Darling froze in the middle of putting on the White Knight armour.

“I'm pretty sure I was supposed to be the one playing hero for Damsel in Distressing Class today,” Hrafn commented wryly as he leant against Nevermore's side and absently scritched under her nearer wing-joint. “I brought Nevermore to be the threatening dragon and everything.”

“Please don't tell?” Darling begged softly.

Hrafn snorted.

“Yeah, I'm going to denounce you from the top of the school that you're not a damsel in distress,” he scoffed. “Anybody who hasn't figured that out for themselves hasn't been paying attention, and deserves to be surprised.”

Darling sighed in relief.

Hrafn straightened from leaning on Nevermore and walked over to the armour.

“Nevermore?”

The dragon in question chirruped, an indication she was paying attention.

“Go pretend to menace the class,” Hrafn instructed.

Nevermore made herself as big as she could, spread her wings, and roared before she took off.

“You know, you should really stick to doing this on days when Daring is the one supposed to come up and do this,” Hrafn said as he helped Darling out of the armour and put it on himself. “Not to disparage your brother or anything, but the rest of us are a bit more responsible about not getting distracted by mirrors.”

“He does have that weakness, doesn't he?” Darling agreed with a sigh. It was both a lament of her brother, and a wistful sound as she lost her chance to be the hero this time. She had, after all, done this before, when Daring had been supposed to be the hero for Damsel in Distressing Class, and forgotten. Another sigh, and she moved to help Hrafn put the armour on right. He was doing fairly well on his own, but armour was always easier with an extra pair of hands.

“You could possibly get away with this on days when Dexter gets sent up as well,” Hrafn offered, “but you'd have to talk to him about it first. I expect he'd be happy to dodge out, but he's still responsible enough to show up and try his best.”

“Dexter does better being a hero in this class than his grades in Heroics one-oh-one make him out to be,” Darling said solemnly. “I think it's that Father isn't looking over his shoulder and criticising his performance.”

“Probably,” Hrafn agreed absently as he finally settled the helmet in place and picked up a sword and shield. “Alright, let's go save the class from Nevermore.”

~oOo~

“When you said you'd be taking Woodshop and Metalwork because your dad wanted you to,” Dexter said, staring at the new addition to their room, “I have to admit, I was not hexpecting this.”

“Honestly, neither was I,” Hrafn admitted with a pleased, proud smile as he surveyed the product of his labours. “I mean, I like numbers, they're fascinating, and that fascination lets me study as hard as I needed to in order to pass. This came... kinda naturally.”

The chair that had been carved to look like it was a flower with one of the petals pulled down to sit on, and a curled stem with leaves touching the ground instead of the traditional legs, was truly a work of art.

“The way you handled some of the mixtures in Science and Sorcery, and all the flowers you arranged to be sent out at the end of the last school year, should probably have been a hint,” Dexter decided after a bit of thinking. “That all came easy too, didn't it?”

“Yeah. Wait. You weren't in my Science and Sorcery class, were you?” Hrafn asked, confused.

“No,” Dexter agreed, “but I'm taking it with Cupid this term, and I remember the grades you got for that, and now that I know the kinds of results Professor Rumplestiltskin is expecting... yeah, it makes sense. I'm surprised you're doing something as advanced as this so early though.”

They were only a little over a month into the new term.

“Ah,” Hrafn half-laughed sheepishly. “Well, Professor Badwolf is the Woodshop teacher, and it turns out he's also a bit of a throw-you-in-the-deep-end kind of teacher when it comes to creative stuff. He gave everybody in the class a chopped-down tree, branches and all, and spent the first couple of lessons on tools, techniques, and safety. Then he told us to just... have at. To find whatever was _in_ the tree, waiting for us to find it. He stalks around the class and gives tips, answers questions, helps when someone looks like they need extra hands for what they're trying to do. Shows more advanced techniques as he sees the need.”

“That's pretty cool – wait. This is what you got out of a whole, chopped-down tree?” Dexter yelped, wide-eyed. “What happened to the rest of it?”

“I'm working on a second, matching chair, and a small table to go with,” Hrafn admitted. “I'm thinking of using the branches to form a rocking chair as well. See how I go.”

“You are getting good marks for this, right?” Dexter checked.

Hrafn nodded.

Dexter considered the chair for a moment longer.

“Can I sit in it?”

“Sure,” Hrafn said. “Tell me if it's comfortable. I mean, I liked it, and so did Professor Badwolf when he tried it, but another opinion is always good.”

“It held Professor Badwolf?” Dexter asked, surprised, as he gingerly sat down. “It looks too delicate to hold his weight...”

“He put his feet up on a cut-off lump of wood an improvised footstool,” Hrafn said with a crooked smile. “His whole weight was on that delicate-looking chair. It didn't even creak.”

“Wow.”

~oOo~

Hrafn had decided that, even if he wasn't going to have anything to do with Apple's yearbook plans, he would make his own. No one would ever see it, but he'd have a nice collection of stories and pictures and things to laugh about.

“People! We have an emergency!” Rosabella's voice ringing out over the quad interrupted Hrafn's idle arrangement of his _Daring Charming's Best Thrills and Spills_ – a montage of pictures of Daring covered in food. “A beloved creature is missing!”

Hrafn packed up his mirror-pad and headed over. People gathered, information was communicated – Hunter's squirrel friend Pesky, another boy's gecko, all three of the Billy Goats were missing – and groups for search parties quickly designated.

“We meet back here, at the flagpole, in twenty,” Rosabella declared. “Let's move it, people!”

Hrafn teleported to his room to check on Nevermore, just in case she wasn't where she was supposed to be. He breathed a sigh of relief when she was, and fed her a dragon-treat before he went to join the search for the animals that were missing. Since he had the magic to do so safely, Hrafn checked the high places around the school that animals could get to, but not necessarily back from, and which humans in general couldn't reach.

No luck.

He did spot Apple taking a picture of Hunter as he searched though, probably for the year book that Hrafn was deliberately not thinking about her being in control of. Honestly, he wasn't too impressed with the girl for taking pictures rather than helping with the search.

“Anybody, any luck?” Rosabella asked when everybody was back at the flagpole.

“I tried getting my animal friends to help search for the missing animals, but they're missing too,” Ashlynn said, increasingly worried.

“We have to use our heads,” Rosabella said, rubbing her chin throughfully.

“Or,” Cerise spoke up, “our noses.”

“What?” a few students asked in confusion.

“If all the missing animals are in the same place,” Hrafn said, moving to stand by Cerise, “then we should be able to smell them. Even if they're all freshly bathed and dried, animals have a smell to them that's different to people. We should be able to find them that way.”

“Follow me!” Cerise said, smiling, and led the way back into the school.

The occasional sniff led the group following behind Cerise through the halls and down a spiralling stone staircase that anybody who had ever been assigned detention by Professor Rumplestiltskin would recognise.

“It's not what it looks like,” came the immediate protest from Faybelle, who was reclining on a lounge chair and doing maintenance on her manicure.

Small animals were in treadmills, the aardvark who shared some of their classes was strapped into a larger one, the three Billy Goats were working at spinning wheels, ball and chain around their ankles, and other animals – also with a ball and chain – were carrying hay on their backs.

“Okay, it is what it looks like,” Faybelle allowed. “But Professor Rumplestiltskin wants twenty bales of hay spun into gold. How was I supposed to do it alone?”

“You've crossed the line, Faybelle,” Rosabella accused. “Creatures aren't your servants.”

Hopper got the aardvark out of the treadmill he'd been strapped in, Hunter got his squirrel Pesky back, Ashlynn freed the forest creatures who had been chained, Darling helped the small animals out of their treadmills. Cerise and Hrafn unchained the three Billy Goats.

“I guess... you think I'm a bad fairy,” Faybelle said.

“I see some good in you,” Rosabella allowed.

“Well I see double detention!” Professor Rumplestiltskin declared suddenly. He'd probably come to check that Faybelle was actually doing her detention. He waved the new detention slip at Faybelle with one hand, a shovel held in the other, which he also presented to the fairy. “Your punishment it to clean out the unicorn stables, for a month!” he said, and chortled as he waddled away.

“Oh curses!” Faybelle whined.

“Better the unicorn stables than some of the other options,” Hrafn quipped lowly to Cerise.

Cerise stifled a laugh behind one hand as she nodded in agreement.

~oOo~

“Nice painting,” Hrafn said quietly.

“Thanks,” Cerise muttered back.

They were in the Student Lounge, and Cerise had set up her easel and canvas by the window, to take advantage of the light. The subject of her painting? The head of a wolf.

“Lifelike,” Hrafn complimented. “Father's Day gift?”

“Heh, yeah,” Cerise scoffed. “I can get away with painting a wolf for Arts and Craft, not with gifting it to my dad. Wish I could.”

“Ooh, speaking of wishes,” Hrafn said, and looked past the canvas to where Farrah Goodfairy had just entered the Student Lounge.

“I don't think Farrah's magic can handle this one,” Cerise quipped.

“Oh of course not,” Hrafn agreed as they watched Farrah being swamped by people with various sorts of wishes to ask of her. “Your wish is a very big deal and has to be dealt with with long-term consequences in mind. Farrah's magic -”

“One at a time,” Farrah's polite censure cut off the babble around her. “Remember, my enchantments only last until the clock strikes noon. Wish wisely.”

“Yeah, that,” Hrafn said. “Faybelle's magic lasts longer than that. Mine lasts longer than that, but then, for all I learned from fairies, I'm not a fairy, and I don't do fairy magic.”

“Why is that?” Cerise wondered aloud as she turned away from Farrah's wish-granting and back to her painting. “Why do Faybelle's spells last longer than Farrah's, I mean. You'd think good fairy magic would be stronger than dark fairy magic. The whole good-triumphs-over-evil thing, and all.”

“Faybelle would tell you that it's because dark fairies are stronger,” Hrafn said idly, “but it's actually something more fundamental, and has to do with the definition of 'good' and 'bad'. Good is being giving, and working hard for what you get. Farrah can't grant any wishes for herself. Bad is getting what you want, when you want it, without thought to the effort it should take. Faybelle has a grudge against hard work.”

“That... okay, so that's all true, but it doesn't explain why Farrah's spells end at noon,” Cerise said.

“She gives, and what she gives can be achieved some other way, and when it goes away, the person she gave it to knows that it can be achieved – if they'll now put in the work for it,” Hrafn said. “The time limit is part of the goodness, even if it sounds to everybody else like an unfortunate catch.”

“And Faybelle's spells don't have that because...” Cerise led on.

“Because for her, the spell _was_ the hard work,” Hrafn supplied. “Laziness isn't a 'good' trait, after all. Don't ask about how and where healing magic fits into that. It's a whole other thing, and unless it comes naturally, it's spelltacularly complicated to learn.”

“Huh,” Cerise hummed, and went back to her painting.

“Farrah's spells would actually backfire if she tried to do magic for herself directly, that hadn't been wished for her by someone else,” Hrafn said. “It's part of the 'good' magic – for yourself, you work for things. Only other people's wishes get granted.”

“Oh, that's sadder than an empty teapot,” Maddie's voice sounded from across the room. “I wish Farrah's wishes could come true.”

“Maddie, you're brilliant!” Ashlynn exclaimed.

“Yay!” Maddie cheered. “Wait. I am?”

“Farrah has Princessology Class now, and I have a plan,” Ashlynn declared.

“You wouldn't be planning to wish a party into existence, using Farrah's magic, and then surprise her with it, would you?” Hrafn called over. “Only, you know, able magic user right here who doesn't have a twelve o'clock cap on my spells, right here.”

“You'd really do that?” Ashlynn asked gleefully.

“You'd really do that?” Cerise asked at the same time, more surprised than gleeful.

Hrafn shrugged, and stuffed his hands into his pockets.

“Farrah's got the short end of the wand,” he said. “If she's feeling down about it, and everybody here wants to help her out of her slump, then sure. Sounds to me like a good cause.”

“Oh, thank you Hrafn!” Ashlynn cheered. “Okay, we'll need streamers, cupcakes, balloons, a disco ball...”

~oOo~

“Oh, Farrah!” Ashlynn called, dragging Hrafn behind her. The party was set up and ready. They just needed Farrah in a sparkling gown.

“Ashlynn, hey, what's up?” Farrah asked, stopping from opening the door that, incidentally, the students had constructed their surprise ball behind. It helped that Ashlynn knew her friend's class schedule and the teacher of Princessology had been willing to co-operate with their little plan to cheer Farrah up.

Mrs Her Majesty the White Queen could be really cool like that sometimes.

“I was thinking about what you said earlier,” Ashlynn admitted, “and I thought, well, could I wish for you to have a glittery gown? But Hrafn was right there while I was thinking about it, and I asked him, and then he offered and, well -”

“For the most giving fairy in the land, a gown that is glittery, glamorous, and grand,” Hrafn said, and let his fingers dance in the air, producing streamers of purple fire.

The magic wrapped around Farrah, and hid her from view for just a moment, before her regular dress turned into a gown of flowing blue gauze and silver silk, covered in glitter and with Farrah's own star-motif decorating the new tiara on her head and the elbow-length gloves on her hands.

“Oh my,” Farrah breathed, amazed as she looked herself over. “But... I don't understand.”

Ashlynn opened the door Farrah had been about to go through.

“Surprise!” everybody who was already there called out.

Farrah stared at the set up they'd all pulled together (Hrafn had magicked everything into existence, but they'd had to arrange everything themselves) with open-mouthed joy. She only snapped out of it when -

“Might I have this dance?” Daring asked smoothly, offering Farrah his hand and his best, most charming smile.

“Oh my,” Farrah giggled, and slipped her hand into Daring's. “So charming,” she said to Ashlynn as she let herself be led onto the dance floor.

“Thank you for this, Hrafn,” Ashlynn said as she watched her friend dancing.

“You're welcome,” Hrafn said with a casual shrug, and went to go and pull Cerise properly onto the dance floor.


	11. Chapter 11

With winter came the new semester, and those subject changes Hrafn had promised himself – he dropped Metalwork, and got back into Magicology and Cross-Cultural References. He was fairly sure his dad wouldn't mind him dropping one craft course, and Cross-Cultural References was really useful. If he cared to ask his mother's opinion (he didn't, and couldn't, so it was moot), then he was sure she'd be happy with the number of magic-focused courses he was taking.

Though to be perfectly honest, on a day like this one, with snow thick on the ground and the lakes frozen solid enough to ice skate on, he really didn't much care what either of his parents thought of his educational choices. Did that make him a bad son?

Well, whatever the case, he was content to leave Nevermore to sleep just about in the fireplace in his dorm room, strap on a pair of ice skates, and just forget about his personal family dramas for a little while. Before he actually went out on the ice though, he was going to fix that hole that Tiny's ice-skate had made in the middle of the lake. That was just dangerous.

“Woah!” a voice screamed from further up the mountain, distracting him before he could form the magic to fix the ice.

Poppy and Duchess were careening down what was normally a river and currently an ice-chute, hand in hand and with expressions somewhere between terror and determination.

“Look out Ashlynn!” Apple called out.

Ashlynn had her headphones in as she was ice-dancing around the frozen lake, and didn't hear Apple's warning. She was very lucky that Poppy and Duchess didn't land right on top of her when they shot out of that ice-chute. For that matter, Poppy and Duchess were lucky they landed as well as they did, on their feet, rather than on their faces on the ice.

“Poppy, you were great out there,” Duchess said once the three of them had come to a stop.

“Probably just beginner's lucky,” Poppy said sheepishly.

“I think we've all had our share of good luck today,” Ashlynn said, headphones out of her ears, as she linked arms with the other two girls, and they all skated over to the lake's edge.

“Now that's a perfect yearbook moment,” Apple decided, and snapped a picture of the three girls.

Hrafn shook his head and determined to ignore that, and instead set about fixing up the ice and getting out on it.

~oOo~

Bewitching Song had really turned out to be very interesting, and Hrafn was enjoying it. Largely for the musical aspect, but also for the magical part. For their most recent assignment, everyone had to compose a song that would compel a creature to a simple task. Melodic manipulation, Professor Piper called it. Today was the day they had to perform it in class, and for anybody who didn't have a creature companion of their own, then they had to guide Professor Piper's rat Moustro through a maze.

So far, Sparrow's ferret had chased its tail, which it was apparently supposed to, and Hunter's attempt to musically persuade his squirrel Pesky into sorting nuts had... not gone quite well.

“Who's next? Melody?” Professor Piper summoned.

“Sure thing, Dad,” Melody said as she stood from her seat. “My song is going to guide little Moustro here to the cheese at the end of this maze.”

And while she played on her flute, that seemed to be working. Melody wouldn't be satisfied with something as simple as that though, and with Moustro half-way through the maze, put the flute away.

“And now, to mix things up a bit,” Melody declared, and pulled over her preferred musical medium.

“Turn tables!?” Professor Piper exclaimed. “You won't be able to control it,” he asserted.

“Daaaad, I can do this,” Melody insisted, and started. For a little while, it even seemed to work, but Moustro danced himself into a wall of the maze. “Curses. I really thought that would work,” she said, and looked up from the maze only to gasp in surprise.

Moustro wasn't the only one who'd been made to dance.

“I can't stop dancin'!” Sparrow, er, said.

“What the hex?” Briar yelped.

“Melody's magic is making us dance!” Rosabella answered.

“What is the meaning of this?” Headmaster Grimm demanded as he moonwalked into the room, spun around, dropped into a sort-of-split (there was a ripping sound from his trousers), and picked himself up again by the back of his own jacket collar before moonwalking back out of the classroom again.

“We can't stop dancing!” someone yelped from beyond the doors.

“This whole school can't stop dancing and it's all my fault!” Melody said, a defeated expression on her face.

“You have to get everyone dancing in sync,” Professor Piper said, as he himself did the row-boat across the room – arms pumping back and forwards while he walked backwards.

Melody considered her turn-tables thoughtfully, then smiled suddenly.

“Hey Hrafn! I think these beats could use a little pick-me-up,” Melody requested.

Hrafn smiled back as he managed to work the right gestures for the magic needed into the dance moves he was doing. Purple fire flew from his hands to Melody's turn-tables, and as well as providing superior amplification, the turn-tables were now floating on a bed of heatless magical flames. The vinyls were glowing with Hrafn's magic as well – just amplification here, to boost Melody's music and the effects of her own magic.

“Hex yeah!” Melody cheered. “Listen up everybody and let DJ Piper move you.”

She spun her turn-tables again, and everybody in the class stopped dancing, just briefly, before they all straightened up and started moving together, the same dance moves at the same time.

“That's it, now follow me,” Melody said as she led the way out of the classroom and into the halls, where more students affected by her music fell in with the class. When they reached the main stairs, Melody stopped, and the legs of the turn-tables returned. She didn't need it to float any more.

“Now hang onto your crowns,” Melody warned, “because DJ Piper is about to work some magic,” she said, and changed out the vinyl on one of the turn-tables.

A short way down the hall, Professor Badwolf danced out of his class and howled in time and in tune to the music.

“Here's a little something for all you Rebels out there,” Melody continued.

Students flowed out of their classes, all dancing together, just as magic flowed from Melody's turn-tables like a purple waterfall. They clapped, they turned, they stomped and reached for the sky – and when the music stopped, so did everyone else.

“Melody, you did it!” Rosabella cheered. “We're in sync! The spell is broken!”

“That was hat-tastic!” Maddie declared, applauding.

“Play it again, DJ Piper!”

“Make us move, Melody!”

When Melody's hands reached for the records on her turn-tables again, Hrafn (conveniently standing right next to her) slipped just a little extra magic in. A school-encompassing party should be properly lit, however impromptu it was.

“Well played, Melody,” Professor Piper said, as he walked around the students to stand next to his daughter. “A plus.”

~oOo~

Spring was fast approaching, and Hrafn was glad that he wasn't the one running around organising Spring Fairest this year. This year, that was Cupid's job, since she was the Student Council President.

Cupid was also, apparently, delegating a _lot_ because she had pollen allergies, and while the first day of spring hadn't hit them quite yet, it was definitely fast approaching, and Cupid knew she'd be suffering when it came. Well, if she didn't have her inhaler, anyway.

Not that Spring Fairest happened on the very first day of spring, but fairly close in after. Hopefully this year's Spring Fairest would run more smoothly than last year's had, with the whole Riddle Book and plugging of the Well of Wonder. Hrafn wasn't in charge, he wasn't even letting himself be delegated to. He'd given Cupid all the help he was going to with his many, many notes from how he'd run the event last year. This year, he was just going to enjoy it.

When the first day of spring finally, officially, hit, Hrafn took the time to stretch luxuriously on his bed, and when he got up, enjoyed an equally luxurious stretch.

“You're in a good mood today,” Dexter observed as they headed for the showers.

“I've got good classes today,” Hrafn answered. “Dance Class-ic to stretch me out and limber me up. Beast Training and Care, so I get to pamper Nevermore for a while. An early lunch, then Woodshop, a study line, and Mathematics to round out the day.”

“Lucky you,” Dexter said with a wry smile. “I've got Science and Sorcery, then Good Kingdom Management before lunch, with Crownculus and Throne Economics after. At least I've got a few free periods. See you at lunch?”

“Sure,” Hrafn agreed.

~oOo~

By the time lunch rolled around though, something drastic had happened. The school had fallen into a very strange sort of chaos.

“What is going on?” Hrafn demanded incredulously when he caught up with Dexter in the halls on the way to the Castleteria. “I just saw Professor Rumplestiltskin kissing Madame Yaga's hand!”

He'd even taken a picture. He'd been taking a lot of pictures since leaving class, actually. He was pretty sure that, when he wasn't confused about what was going on, this would be hilarious.

“It looks like someone got their hands on Cupid's bow and arrows, and didn't realise they weren't for use in regular archery,” Dexter said, plainly worried as his voice shook and his eyes darted around, searching for his girlfriend. “Cupid!” he called when he spotted her, and waved for her.

“Dex!” Cupid called back, and hurried over.

“So what's with the... plague of lovie-ness?” Hrafn asked.

“I don't know!” Cupid said, frustrated.

“I think Hunter has something of yours, Cupid,” Ashlynn said, pushing her own boyfriend ahead of her.

Hunter had Cupid's bow and quiver of arrows in his arms.

“You're... welcome?” he said weakly as he handed them over.

“Hunter!” Cupid yelped, and snatched them back.

“I don't suppose you have a cure or reversal potion in there, do you?” Hrafn asked hopefully.

“You can't stop love,” Cupid denied. “It's a force of nature. Oh, but I have an idea! Get everybody affected into the Castleteria? It looks like I need to pick my mood roses sooner than I thought I would,” she said, and hurried off.

“Mood roses?” Ashlynn echoed, even though the only person who could answer her question had left.

“We'll find out when she gets back,” Hrafn said. “For now, we need all the help we can get, to get everybody contained and in one place.”

“Right,” Ashlynn, Hunter, and Dexter all agreed.

~oOo~

“Attention everyone!” Hrafn called out over the gathered school population. Magic meant he was best able to amplify himself and be heard. “You have all been infected with love fever!”

Surprised gasps answered him, and left a hush sufficient for Cupid, speaking normally, to speak and be heard.

“Lucky for us, there are lots of kinds of love,” Cupid said. “These mood roses should help.”

They were white when she handed them out, but as those who hadn't been struck by arrows handed them on to those who had been, they changed colour, and the fever-pitch died down.

There were a few red and pink roses scattered about, but most of the roses that got passed around were yellow. Cupid explained as the flowers were handed out what the different colours meant, and Hrafn was surprised that it was... slightly different to the rose meanings he'd been taught. Simpler. Red for romance, yellow for friendship, and pink for meant to be together forever after. There was a bit of blushing about the pink and red roses, but even then, the people who received them were all able to break out of their love fever and calm down just as well as those who had received yellow roses.

“Will these work for you as well, Cupid?” Dexter asked when most of the roses were gone. “I mean, you've been handing them out, and they didn't change colour for you or the people you gave them to.”

“Only cherubs can grow mood roses, and they're meant for one person to give to another,” Cupid explained. “If they changed colour when the cherub that grew them handled them, then what would be the point?”

“So I'd have to get a mood rose from some other cherub to give to you?” Dexter asked.

Cupid smiled at the implication.

“Dex, just get your girlfriend _regular_ roses,” Hrafn scolded. “Ones that have already had the pollen cleared out of them, so she doesn't sneeze.”

The cute couple blushed. Dexter at being reminded that Cupid was, indeed, his girlfriend. Cupid at being reminded of her allergies. It was really embarrassing being a cherub who was allergic to the roses that she grew.

~oOo~

The Tri-Castle-On rounded out the school year. There would still be the summer term, but not everybody stayed for that – Hrafn hadn't, last year – most people did though, and this time, Hrafn would be as well. The summer term had slightly shorter school-days than the regular school terms, as well as slightly longer lunches, but there were still classes happening. Most of them were the kind of classes that involved physical activity, like Grimmnastics and Beast Care and Training, though there were also remedial academic classes for students who were struggling. Heroics and Villainy classes apparently cut out the theory almost completely for the summer term and went heavily into different types of practicals, sometimes even pitting the two advanced classes – Hero Training and Advanced Villainy – against each other. Hrafn wondered, as he was taking both, how that would work with him.

Dexter suggested he'd probably alternate, when Hrafn had put the question to him. His room mate had been thrilled that Hrafn was staying for the summer term this year.

Still, Tri-Castle-On to get through first.

Fortunately for his dignity, Track and Shield wasn't a mixed event, so he didn't have to compete against Cerise even if they were both signed up for the same races. She really cleaned up there, winning every race she was in. Hrafn only won about half of his, and while he gave Hunter a run for his money in the Archery competition, Hunter had apparently learned Sparrow's dad's trick of splitting arrows already in the centre of the target.

Most impressive, and for Hrafn at least, not something he could do without using magic to cheat. It might have been possible for Sparrow, maybe, but he hadn't even entered the Archery tournament – now there was a guy who really didn't want to follow in his father's footsteps.

Lizzy dominated at the day's last event, Extreme Croquet, and really finished the day off in style.

“Attention students,” Headmaster Grimm's voice echoed out over the public speakers. “It is time to grow our Ever After annual yearbooks. Anybody wishing to witness the planting of this year's e-corn should hurry up to the Legacy Orchard.”

“Coming Hrafn?” Dexter asked.

Hrafn shook his head. He hadn't made any kind of fuss about the yearbook, and how Apple had decided to do it. He hadn't even asked how she had decided to do it. He'd heard her say “perfect for the yearbook” a lot, and seen her taking a couple of pictures during the year. It was enough to give him an idea. He had decided months ago to wash his hands of Apple's account of the school year. He wanted nothing to do with it now.

“I'll stay here,” Hrafn said, “stretch out after everything.”

“Okay,” Dexter conceded with an easy shrug. “Suit yourself.”

Hrafn questioned his decision to leave the yearbook well enough alone when he realised that Apple had forgotten the e-corn on the bleachers. Hey, he might not have been making his own, personal yearbook as a private counterpoint to Apple's official one, but he'd still taken a lot of pictures during the school year.

He had pictures of Ginger in that food trailer, just before Jack Horner had arrived, and her face when she came back after filling his order to find all her cupcakes had been sold while she was gone. He had pictures of Darling in the White Knight armour, posing with Nevermore actually, after that Damsel in Distressing Class where he'd caught her out that time. Pictures of couples at the True Hearts Day Dance (Cupid had an even easier time of organising it now that she was Student Council President herself). There were a lot of cute pictures from that dance, and Hrafn had even put one in a frame on his dresser. The pictures from the dance were followed by a large (hilarious, just as he'd thought it would be) collection of pictures from that day when Hunter had made a mess of things with Cupid's arrows.

He had pictures of this year's Thronecoming floats (it was such a relief to not be even slightly in charge of organising anything this year, truly), and of Cerise once again riding on the shoulders of the Bookball Team, hero of the game again, but no longer the only girl on the team – one of Ashlynn's stepsisters had joined the team as well this year. These were followed by pictures of that time when Melody Piper made the whole school dance.

He had a picture of Ashlynn and Hunter as this year's Thronecoming Queen and King (though he acknowledged that Apple probably had Thronecoming pictures in her yearbook as well) and pictures of Hopper finally getting a real date with Briar.

He'd been the cheering section in the bushes for that pairing for a long time. Not that he'd actually had to hide in the bushes, since that date had been at this year's Spring Fairest. He just hung back a bit and took the occasional picture. Not that every picture he'd taken at Spring Fairest had been of the cute couple that finally actually were a couple.

And Hrafn had tried really hard, all year, to get pictures of Daring any time someone spilled something on him. Mostly for Dexter's sake, because he had self-esteem issues that were heavily linked to brotherly comparisons, and any shot of Daring _not_ being perfect was good for Dexter's morale. So was Cupid, but for a whole other reason.

“Oh hex,” Hrafn muttered to himself. “Why not.”

He grabbed the e-corn, plugged it into his mirror-phone, and uploaded all the pictures and stories he'd collected over the year. Not instead of what Apple had done. Just... as well as.

The upload was finished and he'd just pulled the e-corn out of the socket when Cedar answered her mirror phone.

“Oh, hey Apple. ...You left the e-corn on the bleachers?” Cedar yelped. “It could have fallen anywhere while people were leaving!”

“It's here!” Hrafn called over, and stood up. “Want me to take it up?” he offered.

“Thanks Hrafn,” Cedar said. “Apple, Hrafn's going to teleport up there with the e-corn.”

Hrafn gave Cedar a quick salute, and then his magic carried him to the Legacy Orchard. He also quickly cast an invisibility spell on himself as he landed a couple of trees away from where the crowd was waiting for the e-corn to be planted.

“Don't tell me you lost it,” Headmaster Grimm said as Hrafn slid up beside Apple, and still invisible himself, pressed the e-corn into her hand.

“It's right here,” Apple assured the Headmaster, a relieved smile on her face as she held the e-corn aloft, then promptly planted it, and covered it over.

“Perfect,” Headmaster Grimm said approvingly, as he checked his watch.

The e-corn quickly sprouted and grew into a very large tree, covered in leaves and with yearbooks hanging from its vines.

“It came out just the way I hoped it would,” Apple said as she opened the nearest yearbook to roughly the middle. Clearly, not a part affected at all by Hrafn's last-minute addition.

“Well done, yearbook committee,” Headmaster Grimm said approvingly.

“I hope that future generations will enjoy reading this yearbook, as much as I loved making it,” Apple said earnestly.

Hrafn was glad he was still invisible, so that no one could see him roll his eyes. He vanished from the Legacy Orchard and back to the bleachers at the same time as Headmaster Grimm told the students to head back to the school.

“How did it go?” Cedar asked when he reappeared in the middle of the field, visible again.

“The word 'perfect' got bandied about a lot,” Hrafn said with a shrug. “The tree grew fast,” he added. “Not that interesting.”

“Oh Hrafn,” Cedar said, shaking her head and smiling at him.

~oOo~

It was a very wet day. Specifically, it was a stormy afternoon, with heavy rain sheeting down and thunder rolling. Probably not the most auspicious start to the summer term.

“I heard she has actual wolf-claws,” Lizzy said to Faybelle as they crossed the hall.

“I heard she howls at the moon,” Faybelle answered.

Oh yes, and there was a certain somebody returning to the school with the new semester.

“Poor Cerise,” Maddie said sadly.

“It is their destiny to be enemies,” Apple pointed out.

Cerise walked up just then.

“What's uh, so hexciting?” she asked.

Apple and Maddie froze up, the former with a worried frown on her face, the latter with a nervous smile. Hrafn was just about to answer when -

“Me,” said a voice.

Framed by the school's main door, and with a backdrop of rain, the owner of that voice stood confidently. Her eyes flashed gold for just a moment, and then she stalked inside.

“It's Ramona Badwolf!” Maddie exclaimed, and she and Apple backed away from the confrontation that was about to happen between Ramona and Cerise.

Hrafn didn't budge. He knew Cerise's secret, knew that Ramona Badwolf was her older sister, knew that both of the girls would probably have to put on a bit of a show any time they were face to face with each other. He also guessed that some of the tension between the two of them would be genuine, because only child he might have been, but Hrafn still knew that siblings didn't always get along.

“Hello Cerise,” Ramona greeted.

“I thought I smelled wet dog,” Cerise answered.

“Oh please, Hood,” Ramona scoffed. “You couldn't find your way out of a paper bag.”

Behind Ramona, a classroom door slammed open. Professor Badwolf – father to both girls – stepped out. Human-shaped, for now.

“What's this lolly-gagging?” Professor Badwolf demanded. “Move along!” he ordered. “Or I'll huff, and I'll puff -” he transformed from man to wolf, “- and I'll blow you to class!”

He did too, well, for some of them. It was very impressive despite not getting everyone. Apple and Maddie were gone. Hrafn, recognising his presence was not wanted here, gave Cerise's shoulder a quick, comforting squeeze before he ducked into Professor Badwolf's classroom. He did have Advanced Villainy next, after all. Oh sure, it was the summer term, and they'd probably be headed outside shortly even with the driving rain, but they always arrived first at the classroom. Professor Badwolf used the classroom setting to make sure he had their full attention so he could explain the day's lessons before they headed out and got on with it.

Incidentally, Dexter had been right. Hrafn did alternate between Hero Training and Advanced Villainy. The former on Tuesday, the latter on Thursday, both took up the entire morning until lunch during the summer term. So did Grimmnastics on Mondays and Wednesdays. Hrafn was only taking six classes during the summer term, rather than the ten he'd taken during the previous semester, nine the semester before that. He'd really cut down from having crammed fourteen different subjects into his class schedule in his very first term at Ever After. Not that he regretted that at all. It had been frantic and crazy, but he'd loved it. Even if he was glad to not be doing that much any more.

A last glance over his shoulder saw Cerise pulling her hood further down over her face – and ears – and Professor Badwolf walking up to his elder daughter.

Of course, because he was in Professor Badwolf's classroom, and the door was open, he heard the very brief conversation that happened just outside of it.

“Now you girls really need to -” Professor Badwolf started.

“Talk to the paw, Dad,” Ramona cut him off.

Very, very brief.

That huffing snarl? That was an “I'm frustrated with your actions but I'm not going to do anything about it right now” snarl. Hrafn remembered that someone got snarled at like that in General Villainy class at least once a month. It didn't happen quite so often in Advanced Villainy, and nearly never in Cross-Cultural References. Maybe once or twice a semester. Hrafn wondered how often he'd hear it during the summer term, and started a tally in the back of his note book.


	12. Chapter 12

While Hrafn's schedule had Grimmnastics in the mornings on Mondays and Wednesdays, Coach Gingerbreadman was running a Grimmnastics class every day of the week. Having the students not all be in the same class made handling them easier. The second day of the summer term, a Friday morning while Hrafn was at Beast Training and Care, was a girls only Grimmnastics class.

Hrafn hadn't known this until lunch when he caught up with Blondie's latest mirror-cast show – which had taken place during that class. No, he wasn't watching the mirror-cast during class. He was watching it after it had aired as he headed back to the main school building from the outlying stable block where Beast Training and Care had been held. Fortunately, the previous day's heavy rain had stopped in the night. The ground was a bit muddy under foot, but the sun was shining.

“Miss Hood, are the rumours true that it was your fault that Ramona Badwolf was sent away to the Dark Forest Reform School?”

“What? Hey! Guh. No comment,” Cerise huffed, shoving Blondie back so that she could focus on the volleyball game, like she was supposed to be.

Apparently she didn't get quite enough space to focus properly, because her hit to the ball sent it flying in completely the wrong direction – to where Ramona was reclining on the bleachers.

The elder of the two sisters caught the ball, and with a smirk on her face, popped it with her claws, which may or may not have actually just been a really sharp manicure. Whatever the case with Ramona's nails, the ball popped in her hand, and Coach Gingerbreadman blew his whistle.

“Ramona, to the headmaster's office,” he ordered.

Ramona descended the bleachers, and paused in front of Cerise just long enough to drop the popped ball and say -

“I'll see you after school.”

\- before she continued out of the Grimmnastics court, while Cerise picked up the dropped, popped ball.

Blondie, who was still standing just behind Cerise, took that in what was probably the wrong way, but certainly sounded not just plausible, but likely, to anyone who didn't know Cerise and Ramona were actually sisters.

“You heard it here first!” Blondie chirped eagerly. “Come see the Hood versus Badwolf battle after school!”

Cerise dropped the popped ball again, and clearly wanted to grab Blondie and tell her she was wrong, that wasn't going to happen. Or at least tell her that she really didn't want the whole school watching while she and Ramona sorted things out between them. Instead, she just pulled her hood lower over her head.

Hrafn clicked off the mirror-cast show, and headed inside.

There were posters up, taped to walls and locker doors, with pictures of Ramona and Cerise, facing each other and wearing boxing gloves.

“This is ridiculous,” Cerise said from just to the left of him, and he turned in time to see her rip one of the posters off a locker. “I think we can settle our own problems.”

“Agreed,” Ramona said from just down the hall. “So, do you accept my challenge?” the elder of the sisters asked, a smirk on her face and her hands on her hips.

“Ugh, fine,” Cerise said, ripping the torn-down poster in half. “Let's settle this right now.”

A few other students who were also in the hall gasped fearfully, but Hrafn knew whose classroom they were about to start a fight in front of, and while he was concerned for his friend (family was hard), he wasn't afraid for her.

“I say no fighting in the halls!” Professor Badwolf growled, fangs bared and furry ears angrily forward, as he slammed open his classroom doors and glared down at his daughters. “Both of you, in my classroom. Now!” he ordered.

Sensibly, they didn't argue, and closed the doors behind them so that none of the other students could eavesdrop on the conversation they were about to have.

~oOo~

Just because the doors were shut, didn't mean the crowd dispersed. In actual fact, it thickened as more students gathered, waiting to see how Cerise would come out of being in a room with both Professor Badwolf and Ramona Badwolf. She was a Hood, after all.

Pretty much everybody breathed a sigh of relief when, upon opening the doors of his classroom once more, Professor Badwolf looked human. That meant good things.

“Alright you two,” Professor Badwolf said, waving Ramona and Cerise out of the classroom from behind him. “Out onto the track. If you have the energy to fight, then you have the energy to run.”

Interest perked up again. It seemed that the Hood versus Badwolf battle was still on – but rather than a fight, it would be a race instead.

Pretty much everybody in the hall followed them out to the track, and set themselves up in the bleachers.

Hrafn slipped into a front row seat, and cheered for Cerise as Professor Badwolf blew the whistle to start the race.

~oOo~

Despite her efforts, Apple's casual dominance of the entire school's attention had been slowly but inexorably slipping. Even having been editor for the yearbook hadn't helped. The casual dismissal by the student population of her person, regardless of her recent, titled role, was demonstrated when she stood atop the mezzanine one day.

“Hexcuse me,” she called over the breakfasting student body, and was ignored. “Hexcuse me!” she called again. Again, she was ignored.

Fingers were brought to her mouth, and a shrill whistle sounded, piercing ears and scaring students into jumping, dropping their foods, and generally making a mess. Tiny's pancakes and butter were the worst of it – he'd accidentally buried a whole table when he moved to cover his pained ears. At least he hadn't dropped the plate, merely flipped the food off of it.

More than one person was covered in their neighbour's cereal though.

“Hexcuse me,” Apple said again. “As editor of _The Griffin_ , our beloved school paper, I am pleased to announce that I'm doing a special feature. The theme is _A Time of Wonder_. It will feature stories about Wonderland, and all the students from Wonderland who are here now!”

“I think Apple's idea is awesome!” Faybelle declared, waving her pompoms about and generally being over the top.

“Thanks Faybelle,” Apple said with a smile. Then seemed to catch on just who had said that, and possible implications of her idea being liked by the daughter of the Dark Fairy. “Wait. You do?”

“Sure,” Faybelle said, and fluttered up to hover over the side of the mezzanine. “Because it will give you a chance to re-hash how these Blunder-land brats got stuck here in the first place,” she explained as she swooped around behind Apple, then settled down to perch on the mezzanine railing. “Thanks to the Evil Queen.”

Faybelle pulled out her mirror-pad and with a quick tap, had called up on it an image of the Evil Mirror that the Grimm Brothers had trapped said senior villain within. It was really an excellent prop for the daughter of the Dark Fairy, with flickering ominous light, and a recording of evil, feminine laughter.

The three billy goats junior escaped from beneath Tiny's dropped pancakes, bleating with fear, and ran for it. They happened to bump into Daring as they ran by him, and he ended up with his eggs and bacon on his face, in addition to the milk and cereal that had been spilled on him just a few minutes ago.

“I cannot tell a lie,” Cedar said, hugging herself. “That lady scares the shavings off of me.”

Hrafn sighed, and picked at his own breakfast thoughtfully for a moment before he – loudly – scraped his chair back and stood.

“The Evil Queen has, indeed, a long laundry-list of crimes to her name,” he said, projecting his voice so that everybody could hear him. “And her crimes against Wonderland are truly the worst of them, and those crimes were further compounded by the actions of Headmaster Grimm, who trapped the Evil Queen in a mirror and sealed the paths between Wonderland and Ever After, forbidding anybody from attempting to right those wrongs.”

“A-hem,” a deep, familiar voice coughed pointedly from behind him.

“Headmaster Grimm,” Hrafn acknowledged.

“You may return to your seat,” Headmaster Grimm said sternly.

“I've finished eating, thank you,” Hrafn said, and headed over to the counter to hand in his dishes.

“As for the rest of you,” Headmaster Grimm said sternly. “Understand this: the Wonderland Curse is dangerous! No one must be allowed to have contact with that world for any reason! It has been sealed off for your own good.” As though that were final and unquestionable, Headmaster Grimm turned from the student body and moved to leave the Castleteria.

“Ooh ooh ooh, Headmaster Grimm,” Apple called after him, hand raised to ask a question as she chased after him. “Actually, as part of my article, I was hoping to ask you about the Curse, and what hexactly it -”

“Enough,” Headmaster Grimm cut her off sternly.

It was, quite possibly, the first time he had ever been stern like that towards Apple, and she was quite surprised by it.

“The two worlds must remain separate, and that is all you need to know,” he insisted, and left her behind as he exited.

“Well, everybody, I'm looking for volunteers to help with the story,” Apple said, her attention back on the rest of the students. “If you're interested, meet me in the study hall during lunch for a planning meeting!”

She managed to get it in just before the bell rang, signalling the end of breakfast, and the beginning of the day's classes.

~oOo~

The swirl of purple magic cleared and revealed the study hall, already occupied by a despondent-looking Lizzy Hearts, a sympathetic Darling standing beside her, as well as Faybelle sitting on the main desk, and Apple grabbing her things out of the waste basket beside said main desk.

“You need some pretty powerful magic to get to Wonderland,” Faybelle was saying airily. “And clearly I'm the most powerful one here -” and then she saw Hrafn.

“Um...” Briar hummed thoughtfully, alternately eyeing her destined fairy tale foe, and the boy who had magically transported all of them to the study hall.

“No,” Faybelle denied, finger pointed at Hrafn. “I stand by what I said. I'm am _clearly_ the most powerful one here, and therefore, the best ticket to get to Wonderland.”

“I'm not going to argue power,” Hrafn said quickly, hands raised, palms out, in surrender. “What I inherited from my mother is different to Fairy Magic, even if I can apply some of the same principles. Besides, it was made clear to me before I was allowed to come to Ever After High that I haven't actually inherited my full powers yet. It was part of why I was allowed to come. The way for me to inherit them is supposed to be here for me to find somewhere. I just... kind of don't want to. There's other stuff that comes with it.”

“Has the meeting started yet?” Alistair asked.

“Of course it hasn't!” Maddie chirped, giggling at the absurdity. “You can't start a meeting until you've had tea! Oh, and you can't have tea without scones,” she said, producing a teapot and cup from the depths of her skirt, and then a tiered tray of scones from within the teapot, followed by jam from the cup she'd already poured tea into. Earl Grey the door mouse supplied a pat of butter, larger than the tiny teacup topper he lived in, from within said hat. Maddie was just searching for a knife to spread the butter when she stopped and looked around her in that way that indicated, to those who knew her, that she was listening to The Narrators, who only she could hear.

A moment later she was standing on the other side of the room, looking very worried.

“Maddie?” Hrafn probed carefully.

“The Queen of Hearts is in danger. Someone is going to try to overthrow her and steal her thrown,” Maddie reported fretfully. “Today.”

“If my mother is in danger,” Lizzy said, wringing her hands fretfully. “Well... we've...”

“Don't worry Lizzy,” Alistair reassured her. “We'll figure out a way to help her.”

“But how? If we can't even get back to Wonderland...” Bunny said.

“Maybe we should look at what's been written about Wonderland before. I mean, we're surrounded by old research, aren't we?” Darling pointed out helpfully.

Hrafn laced his fingers together and pushed his hands out, cracking his knuckles. Purple sparks flew, growing into small, heatless flames as they went.

“This,” he said, as the sparks multiplied and shot out around the room, “is not Fairy Magic. What this is, is part of my secret to how I stayed on top of all of my thronework and my Student Council Presidential stuff my first year here.”

An array of books flew from the shelves and settled into a pile on top of the largest desk in the study hall. Each one with a small purple flame harmlessly dancing along the edges of the pages.

“What is that spell?” Darling asked curiously as she carefully approached the stack of literature.

“Combined locator and retrieval spell, but keyed to a specific word, and designed to bring the whole book, rather than just the piece of paper that the word is on,” Hrafn explained, and looked over to Faybelle. “You should be able to adapt the idea, right? I just don't do it the way a fairy would. If you want, I'll teach you the original chanted spell later.”

Faybelle nodded thoughtfully. It would definitely cut down on the amount of work she'd have to do for her assignments, and she was all for that.

“Well, everybody grab a book and see if you can find anything that could be useful,” Apple directed, and took the first book off the top of the pile.

~oOo~

“Is it true that in Wonderland you only go to school for one day a year?” Apple asked, surprised by what she had found in the book she'd chosen.

“Oh yes,” Lizzy confirmed.

“But we have to cram a lot-a-lot-a-lot of stuff into that one day!” Maddie added earnestly.

“It was a great place to live,” Alistair said, just a little wistfully.

“And your mother really is a good queen, Lizzy,” Bunny added, and closed the book she'd been looking through. It wasn't being very helpful. It talked more about Wonderland Grove in Ever After, than it did about Wonderland itself. “I think the curse just kind of stressed her out.”

“Thanks Bunny,” Lizzy said. “It must be so hard for her on her own, with a whole Queendom to take care of.”

“Hey! I think I found something!” Briar called out suddenly. “I mean, it has to be something, right?” she checked as everybody gathered around her. “Why else would a picture of the Evil Queen be in a book about Wonderland?”

“Good question,” Apple agreed, and brought out her mirror-pad. “Set it down, and I'll try out my new hex-amination app.”

“Will your app be able to clean up the image enough for us to read the reflection of whatever is in the book she's holding?” Hrafn asked, and tapped the mirror in the picture that gave a blurry view of the page the Evil Queen had her book open to.

“It should be able to,” Apple confirmed. “Focus on mirror, reverse image, enhance...”

“And send that to all of us?” Hrafn requested. “That way, we don't all have to be looking over your shoulder to try and see what it is.”

“Sure,” Apple agreed, and with a few taps, everybody's mirror-pads or mirror-phones chimed that they'd received the enhanced file.

“It's the Wonderland Curse,” Faybelle and Hrafn said, recognising it at the same time.

“Ooh! If we know the curse, then you can reverse it!” Maddie said enthusiastically. Well, even more enthusiastically than was her norm.

“If the curse is broken, then Headmaster Grimm will remove the seal between our world and Wonderland,” Apple added, blue eyes bright and eager.

“Easier said than done,” Hrafn warned.

“You transported us here,” Briar pointed out.

“You don't want to know how many times I screwed up the transportation spell when I was first learning it,” Hrafn warned, “and I still need to know exactly where I'm going before using magic to travel. Magic is not that easy.”

Kitty materialised beside Hrafn with a yawn and a smile.

“Hey guys, sorry I'm late,” Kitty said.

“Okay, let me rephrase,” Hrafn said, rolling his eyes fondly at the feline girl. “Magic isn't as easy as it looks, and certain aspects come more naturally to some people than others. Or do you think Farrah likes being limited to only being able to perform magic for others, and all of her spells undoing themselves when the clock strikes twelve? A spell like this? Who knows what could happen!”

“Oh brother,” Faybelle scoffed, and gave Hrafn's shoulder a shove. “Step aside, wanna be. I got this from here. You just gotta do it backwards. Ready? Okay!” Faybelle cheered. “Curse this cast I Wonderland... on.”

Her pep and bounce kind of faltered when the rhythm didn't fit her usual cheer-style of spell casting, and then it got worse. First her head became a woolly sheep's head, and their the rest of her body bounced upwards towards her flittering wings – hands and feet replaced by cloven hooves and body covered in wool. Faybelle the sheep now hovered before them all, distinctly unhappy.

“Baa! What?!” Faybelle bleated in shock.

“This is actually the second time I've seen this happen today,” Briar said.

“Never gets old, does it?” Kitty quipped with a smile.

“Dexter got sheeped in Science and Sorcery,” Briar continued, politely ignoring Kitty's aside, for Faybelle's sake. “Madame Yaga should be able to fix it.”

“I am so outta here,” Faybelle declared, and swooped down to pick up her dropped mirror-phone between her hooves before she flew out of the study hall.

“The Evil Queen's curse must have it's own protective magic,” Darling said thoughtfully. “Probably so that only one of the Queen's family will have the power to reverse it. Oops,” she gasped, one hand darting up to cover her mouth as she looked apologetically over to Apple.

“It... it might not be,” Apple tried hopefully, pushing aside the inadvertent reminder that her destiny was in question for as long as no one knew even if the Evil Queen had a daughter before she was trapped in the Mirror Realm for having cast the Wonderland Curse. “Maybe it was just because Faybelle was a fairy. Hrafn said there was a difference between Fairy Magic and other kinds, right? Or maybe it isn't as simple as just saying it backwards.”

“Hrafn?” Briar asked carefully. “You're creative enough to figure it out, right?”

“Spells as much a science as an art,” Hrafn cautioned, but he still took another look at the spell as it was presented on his mirror-pad. “But straight off, I'd say the problem that Faybelle had was that, one, she faltered. You can't stop a spell before you finish it.”

“And two?” Bunny pressed.

“She used the wrong tone,” Hrafn said with a frown. “Science as much as an art, but an art as much as a science too. When you're dealing with heavier spells, you have to take them seriously. You can't be light with them.”

“Will you try it Hrafn?” Lizzy entreated. “Please?”

Briar lay a supportive hand on Hrafn's shoulder. After all, if Darling's theory was right...

“Alright,” Hrafn conceded, and cleared his throat. “Curse this cast I Wonderland on. Worse to bad and bad to good from.” His voice echoed with the quality of magic, and his eyes glowed with power. A mist of purple magic slowly swirled into existence around their legs. “Cruel most fate a be shall yours so rule my defied dared have you!”

Within the study hall, a wind picked up. The wisps of purple mist became streamers of magenta power.

“Oh no,” Hrafn breathed as he felt the spell, complete and released, begin to move outside of him, no longer tied to his magic.

“What?” Darling asked, worried.

“You don't reverse this curse by saying it backwards,” Hrafn revealed, able to say this with certainty now that he had made the attempt. “This is something different.”

When the streamers of magic cleared, only Alistair and Bunny remained in the study hall, coughing on the dust that had been stirred by the magical wind.


	13. Chapter 13

“Where are we?” Apple yelped as they started to fall.

“If I didn't know better,” Maddie said as she grabbed a teacup out of the air and sipped from it, before letting go of it again, and bouncing off a floating table, “and I don't,” she added gleefully, “I'd say we're in a rabbit hole!”

“I wonder where it leads to,” Lizzy said, a determined expression on her face as she ran across the face of a clock and dived off the other side.

“I wonder,” Hrafn said with a hint of a growl, “why this particular rabbit hole thinks it needs to change our clothes, and why it's putting _me in a dress_. Stop that!” he snapped, brushing his hands against the magic. It recoiled from him a little bit, leaving him with his trousers, and the would-be dress stopping at a length that could instead be called a very long shirt. Whatever magic was renovating their wardrobes decided to go for his hair instead, more than tripling the length (which had an interesting effect on its natural curl), pulling it up in a high tail, and adding turquoise streaks to his natural black and dark purple.

He could feel his usual, understated crown getting a bit heavier too. Hrafn just bet that whatever magic was doing this, it had made the crown a gaudy gold rather than his preferred silver. He just bet. A weight settled on both of his ears. Was that -?! He reached up. Earrings. His ears hadn't even been pierced this morning!

At least he didn't have a flamingo on his head, like Lizzy did. That was something.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Kitty said when they finally landed somewhere and she examined the fur on the cuffs on the sleeves of her new dress. Hrafn wondered how she felt about the appearance of a tail.

“Where are we?” Briar asked, echoing Apple's earlier question.

“Woah!” Kitty exclaimed, looking up and around. “We're in -”

“Wonderland!” all of the Wonderlandians cheered.

“Oh, after all this time, I'm finally back home!” Lizzy said, sounding very near to tears, as she drank in the brightly coloured vista all around them.

“Who knew there was a dress code,” Briar joked.

“Yeah, these new dresses are wonderlanderful!” Kitty said happily, primping the fur collar she'd gotten.

“The bow is going to take some getting used to,” Apple said with a smile, “but I love it!”

“I like Maddie's hat,” Hrafn quipped, “but I'm going to emphasise that I had nothing, at all, to do with the new clothes. Or I wouldn't have almost ended up in a dress.”

“Why thank you,” Maddie said, tipping her new topper. “You do look very smart too Hrafn.”

“Oh Hrafn, you broke the curse! And brought us to Wonderland!” Lizzy said, rushing to him and wrapping her arms around him in a grateful hug. “Thank you!”

“I'm prepared to accept thanks for the second,” Hrafn said, wrapping his hands around Lizzy's shoulders, a serious look on his face, “but I am not convinced I did the first. I have a horrible feeling that the worlds are still sealed apart, and the curse is still in place.”

“Well... since we're in Wonderland, we could at least look for the Storybook of Legends,” Kitty suggested.

“Ah, yeah, about that,” Briar said, “I've been meaning to tell you guys...”

“Can it wait, Briar? My mother's party is at tea time,” Lizzy said, so joyfully that Hrafn had to wonder if she'd heard him say that he thought the curse was still in place. “Hurry everyone!”

“Hurry means flurry and flurry means feathers and feathers mean wings to fly,” Hrafn chanted carefully. He'd never cast magic in Wonderland before, after all, and Wonderland magic was definitely different from Ever After magic, for all that he'd learned a lot about it simply by spending time with Maddie and the other Wonderlandians having Wonderland Tea Parties, back when he'd been Student Council President.

“Woah!” Lizzy and Briar both yelped when the fan-like arrangements at their backs (big purple playing cards for Lizzy, and stiff, lace-like green vines for Briar) turned into wings and lifted them into the air.

“Okay, so that's two who can move faster,” Hrafn said, his own feet still on the ground. “Kitty, how's your transportation? Maybe go ahead of everybody and let Her Majesty know Lizzy and the rest of us are coming?”

“Sure!” Kitty said, and went to disappear... only to fail. “What?”

“Probably interference from the curse,” Hrafn said with an unhappy sigh. “Like I said, I don't think I actually broke the curse when we came here. Once you're used to its atmosphere, you should be alright to teleport again.”

“Come along everyone!” Lizzy called again, now hovering ahead thanks to the wings Hrafn had given her.

“And I don't think Lizzy has heard me any of the times I've said it,” Hrafn added.

~oOo~

Lizzy realised it for herself soon enough. The pleasant walk past realised metaphors came to an abrupt, unhappy halt when they crested a hill and were presented with a view of a cursed, drab, poisoned-looking Wonderland, with the ominous curse-cloud circling green and flashes of lighting above.

“I thought... I hoped...” Lizzy said.

“I knew as soon as I finished reading the original curse backwards,” Hrafn said softly. “This kind of curse can't be broken that way. With it being right there, I should be able to figure it out with a bit of time.”

“You really think so?” Lizzy asked hopefully. “With how it... hasn't broken, after what you did... Do you suppose that Darling was right, that only someone who is family to the Evil Queen could remove it?”

“It's possible,” Hrafn allowed, “but I won't know until I get a better look at it.”

“I'll help you,” Lizzy said, “right after we save my mother from this scheming villain, whoever they are. Then it will be off with their head instead of hers!” Lizzy declared, with a resolved cross-ways slice of her left arm.

“Look!” Kitty said, distracting them and pointing back behind them. “The White Knight!”

Hrafn couldn't help think that the armour was familiar, even if the chess-piece steed was not. He also remembered that Darling had been in the study hall with them when that spell had done the unexpected, even if she hadn't seemed to fall down the same rabbit hole as the rest of them.

“Run, quickly!” the White Knight (possibly Darling) urged them as their chess-piece steed drew alongside the group. “They're coming! Follow me!”

Hrafn grabbed Maddie and Kitty, as they were nearest him, and took off at a run. He didn't bother to ask who or why. They had been advised to run, and had a direction to run from – that which the White Knight had approached from – that was enough. That the White Knight was leading the way, hopefully to safety, was a bonus.

“Hrafn! Slow down!” Apple called after them.

“Nope!” Hrafn called back with what breath he could spare. “We got told to run quickly. Running now.”

“I can't keep up!” Apple cried as they neared a bridge.

Hrafn nearly growled. Oh, for Cerise to be one of their company instead of Apple! He released his grips on Kitty's and Maddie's wrists with a gentle forward shove to remind them to keep running, and doubled back for the last member of the party. Briar and Lizzy, with Hrafn's magicked up wings, weren't having any problems at all keeping up with the White Knight.

Hrafn had just caught Apple up to the rear of the rest of the group when the White Knight's red counterpart dropped down in front of the group.

“Stop right there,” the Red Knight ordered them. “Men, deploy!”

Card soldiers fanned out around them, fencing them in completely.

“Why didn't you do anything?” Lizzy demanded of the White Knight.

“Well, I couldn't do anything,” the White Knight admitted a little sheepishly, gauntleted hand at the back of helmeted head. “It was his turn.”

“What do you want with us,” Hrafn demanded, stepping forward.

“I am the attendance officer of Wonderland High School,” the Red Knight said, and hopped off his chess-piece steed. “Unless you have a hall-pass signed by the Vice Principle, I am bound to deliver you back to class.”

Hrafn suppressed the urge to groan and mutter about the Law of Foreshadowing, and spared a moment to wish himself back in time so that he could stop Apple from asking about Wonderland's school system. He wondered if he could talk them out of this situation. Metaphor wasn't a thing in Wonderland, after all. Everything was very literal.

“Can't go back to a place we've never been,” Hrafn denied, and hoped that would be enough. It may not be.

“It doesn't matter,” Lizzy said with a sigh, dropping out of the air to land lightly on the ground. An act which saw the wings Hrafn had managed to conjure for her turning back into a fan of large purple cards at her back.

Well, so much for Hrafn's attempt to get them out of this situation.

“I'll explain our situation to the Vice Principle. How long 'til we get to the school, anyway?” Lizzy asked the Red Knight.

“It's not far today, because -” the Red Knight said, and Wonderland started shifting around them, “- you're already here.”

“Of all the days, we just had to come here on school day,” Maddie complained, pouting, as she crossed her arms over her chest and slumped to the sound of the bell.

“School or no school,” Lizzy said dismissively. “You realise my mother is the queen? I don't have to stay here. Come along my friends,” she called, and turned to head to the school gate. To her spluttering shock, it was barred by card guards. “But- but- !”

“Sorry ma'am, but you're on school grounds now,” the Red Knight explained. “You have to obey school rules. None of you are going anywhere until you graduate.”

“Briar isn't on school grounds,” Hrafn pointed out quickly, “she's in the air.”

“Well, er, that's...” the Red Knight hesitated.

“I don't think I'd be able to handle Wonderland all on my own,” Briar said, apologetically. “I don't know where the palace is, or how to get an audience with the Queen of Hearts. So... Okay, I know I could be our best shot to get word out right now, but I think I'd be safer staying with you guys. Sorry Lizzy,” she added as she landed – her own set of magical wings also returning to their previous state.

“No, you're right,” Lizzy agreed with a frustrated sigh. “If you're not familiar with Wonderland, it isn't a good idea to be out in it on your own. Still. You don't understand! I can't go to school!” she objected at the Red Knight once more. “Take us to the palace immediately!”

“I'm sorry your highness, but the rules are that once you've set foot on school grounds, no one is free to go until they have passed their classes,” the Red Knight explained. “No one.”

“Maybe I really shouldn't have landed,” Briar quipped, a hint of worry in her tone.

“I definitely shouldn't have,” Lizzy agreed, frowning.

“Look, I think we got off to a bad start,” the Red Knight said, and removed his helmet. “Chase is the name, Chase Redford.”

The helmet had really been distorting his voice quite a lot, and Lizzy was visibly flustered by the Red Knight's handsome young face, now that she could see it. The rest of the girls in the group seemed to like what they were seeing too.

“And I understand your distress,” Chase continued as he dismounted from his chess-piece steed, having escorted them to the foot of the stairs that led up to the main door of the school. “Besides, it's just one day of school. How hard can it be?”

“Will the school day be over in time for her Majesty to be able to attend her royal mother's celebration?” Hrafn checked. “It's at tea time. Four o'clock.”

“Not a problem,” Chase assured the group. “School lets out at three. Now, you really don't want to be late,” he urged them, beginning up the stairs in a way that got them all following. “The Vice Principle doesn't like it when students are late.”

“Uh, what about the Principle?” Briar asked.

“The Vice Principle is the Principle,” Chase answered. “After all, it's not really fair to promote a Vice Principle out of their Vice Principle job just to make them Principle. It's principally a matter of principal.”

“Makes sense to me,” Maddie agreed.

“Excuse me! Clear the way!” a harried voice called from roughly hip-height, and a waistcoated rabbit pushed through between Maddie and Kitty's dresses. “I'm very late. I can't delay!”

“Ah!” Maddie exclaimed happily, drawing the rabbit's attention.

“Why my ears and whiskers! It's Madeline Hatter, and Kitty Cheshire too! And – oh! Your Royal Highness,” the rabbit bowed profoundly to Lizzy.

“Guys, this is the White Rabbit, Bunny's dad,” Maddie introduced. “Bunny's okay,” she added to the White Rabbit. “In Ever After, by the way.”

“Oh thank goodness! She's safe from the curse,” the White Rabbit said, genuinely relieved.

Hrafn frowned. Not at the way the White Rabbit cared about his daughter, but that apparently no one had told him where Bunny was. It was clearly possible for messages to get through, even if it was difficult for people to do so – Lizzy had received an invitation to her mother's birthday tea party, after all. And hadn't Kitty's mother been at Ever After for some of Spring Fairest? Her ability to teleport (in Wonderland, to Ever After, and back to Wonderland) had been unaffected by the curse, right? So why hadn't she said anything to the White Rabbit about where his daughter was?

Then again, Cheshire Cat.

“Oh dear,” the White Rabbit yelped when his pocket watch clanged. “No time to talk. That's the bell that rings when the bell's about to ring. Quickly now!” he hustled, and hopped to the main doors of the school.

The rest of them followed.

~oOo~

“Mr White Rabbit sir, please,” Lizzy said as she stood behind the rabbit on one of the many moving floors that carried students around the school. “You have to let my mother know I'm here. I really must speak with her.”

“Oh my fluffy tail, no,” the White Rabbit said, ears pointing straight up in fear. “No! The Vice Principle... would be most displeased,” he explained, his ears folding down and back, trying to hide from the very idea of drawing this Vice Principle's attention.

“Even if we're here on a mission to stop a plot against the Queen?” Hrafn asked, jumping from his vertically-moving walkway onto the horizontal one Lizzy and the White Rabbit were on. “Surely for the good of Wonderland we would be permitted -”

“I must tell you something,” the White Rabbit interrupted nervously.

The various moving walkways brought all of the group that had come from Ever After (sans Darling, if indeed it had been her in the White Knight armour) together again, and thankfully stopped moving.

“You are correct. There is a plot against the Queen of Hearts,” the White Rabbit confessed.

“I knew it,” Lizzy said, fiercely angry on her mother's behalf.

“What about the Storybook of Legends?” Briar asked nervously. “Do you know where it is?”

“I do not, young lady,” the White Rabbit denied apologetically, “but! There is a prophecy. Eh-hem. Into our world, six girls will drop to end this endless rhyme. The curse will tick-tock to a stop and ring its final chime. The legend book the cat did swap, they possibly shall find, and the regal head shall not be chopped _if_ they graduate on time.”

“That kinda made sense,” Hrafn said cautiously.

“Of course it did,” Maddie said with a hint of proud giggle in her tone.

“We're the six girls – oops,” Apple cut herself off, and all eyes turned to Hrafn.

Hrafn decided then and there that yes, the White Knight was definitely Darling Charming. Only way that little prophecy could still work. That his parents had expected him to be a girl, that the fake Storybook of Legends had showed him a 'destiny' where he was wearing a dress, and that the rabbit hole they'd fallen down had tried to put him _into_ one... no. Not important. Not unless it was a technicality that counted him as a girl despite his actually being a boy.

Cleopatra had been a King, technically. She'd worn a fake beard and everything. Maybe that was what was going on with him here, now.

“If we count technicalities,” Hrafn allowed, thinking of both his maternal legacy and of Darling, “then I think we're safe. No, I'm not hexplaining.”

“The Storybook of Legends,” Kitty said, eyes bright. “My mom swapped it for that book of tricks!”

“So... we'll find it?” Briar guessed, not looking particularly happy about that.

“And my mother will be safe,” Lizzy declared, fierce and fired up.

“But only if you graduate,” the White Rabbit reminded them.

A clanging rang out.

“The second bell!” the White Rabbit exclaimed, suddenly in a panic again. “I'm late! Here's your class!” he said as he pushed a thick paintbrush into Hrafn's hands. “I'm late!” he exclaimed again, and bounced away in a hurry, exclaiming “I'm late! I'm late! I'm late!” as he went.

“He's kinda high-strung, isn't he?” Briar observed when he was gone.

“Yeah,” Hrafn agreed. “Um... any wall?” he checked, looking at the paintbrush. Cross-Cultural References Class and all of those Wonderland Tea Parties coming in handy.

“Any wall!” Maddie chirped happily.

“One door, coming up,” Hrafn said, and applied brush to wall.

~oOo~

“All we have to do is get through one day of school?” Apple asked as they walked through the door Hrafn had painted for them. “That doesn't seem to hard.”

Then Wonderland physics applied themselves, as it turned out that Hrafn's door had led them onto the ceiling of the classroom, rather than the floor. They all landed in a pile.

“It's harder than you think,” Maddie asserted.

“Seriously?” Briar complained as she stood up, hands on her back. “Is this what it's going to be like all day long? Because I don't think this dress was designed for parkour.”

“Ahem. Welcome to Fish-losophy one-oh-one,” said a fish who was wearing a jacket and classes, a teaching baton held in one flipper. “Take a seat.”

“Oh, ah, yes sir,” Apple agreed, and moved towards what looked like a chess-piece-chair and book-table set. “This looks like a good spot.”

“Ow! Hey!” the desk objected. “Don't sit on me! What do I look like, a desk'!?”

“Oh my gosh!” Apple squeaked as she backed away. “I am so sorry.”

“Fish out of water, that's what you are,” Hrafn said firmly and clearly. “All of us, now that I think about it.”

Not that it had taken much thinking. Other fishy students in the room had their own bubbles of water around them, and this was Wonderland. They didn't do metaphors. Yet, their teacher was a fish, and he was as dry as the rest of them.

“A fish, in a school, out of water you say,” the teacher observed. “You girls have learned quick, faster and faster. All I can teach you, I have taught you today. You six have become as your master.” He took a gasping breath, then proclaimed “Pass!”

The floor changed, the tiles replaced with a watery blue... which the teacher dived into with a flourish.

Their little group, on the other hand, fell in with a splash. At least they were all encased in bubbles and didn't have to worry about breathing.

~oOo~

A new classroom formed around them, and the bubbles that had carried them there popped as each of them was set on a seat behind a desk – both of which looked like numbers.

“... plus the square root of thirteen,” droned a scholarly-looking owl from his perch high up, near the top of the massive blackboard he was writing a giant equation on. “Whoo!” he said as he turned to them. “Pupil! How does one solve this problem?”

“That's one problem?” Briar gasped.

“It only looks long because he's over-complicating everything,” Apple assured her friend. “If you simplify the formulas and get rid of the redundancies, you'll cut the problem in half!”

A card guard charged forward, sword in hand, and sliced the blackboard through the middle, length-ways.

“Well, that's one way to cut it in half,” Hrafn allowed as the blackboard crumbled.

“Problem solved,” the owl declared. “Class dismissed.”

And then they were falling again.

~oOo~

“I, Tweedle Dee of the affirmative position, welcome you to Debate Class. Tweedle Dum will represent the negative position.”

“I will not!” objected Tweedle Dum.

“Oh yes you will,” Tweedle Dee insisted.

And so began a back-and-forth between the two apes Tweedle that was the most basic of arguments: yes you will, no I won't. An argument that was enhanced by _I reject your refusal_ and _I reject your rejection_ , and the use of little levers on the side of their podiums to elevate them above each other.

“At least they're kind of funny?” Hrafn offered weakly.

“But what they're doing isn't debating!” Apple objected. “They're just saying strange things and disagreeing for no reason!”

“We're not getting out of here any time soon,” Kitty lamented softly.

“Such negativity!” Tweedle Dee censured from his place at the top of his much-extended podium.

“No it isn't!” Tweedle Dum countered, again leaning on his lever to take him higher.

“Ooh, I can't take it any more!” Apple said, getting out of her chair and crossing the room to the large lever that was between the two elevated podiums. She pulled it, bringing both of the Tweedles crashing back down to the ground. Slightly through it, even, so that she was taller than both of them. “I'm really sorry, but this is Debate Class? Things need to make sense! For starters, your hats are on backwards,” she said, snatching both hats off the two ape's heads. “You should be wearing this one and you should be wearing that one. Thank you,” Apple breathed out, apparently relieved to have made even one thing 'right' by her standards.

“Well, there's no arguing with that logic,” Tweedle Dee said.

“Oh yes there is,” Tweedle Dum countered.

Before the two apes could get going again, the bell rang.

“Twelve o'clock,” Maddie declared cheerfully. “Time for lunch!”


	14. Chapter 14

“Am I the only one that remembers that we left a planning meeting in the study hall _at lunch time_?” Hrafn grumbled to himself as he sat down at a table with Briar, Maddie, and Lizzy. Rather than eat any of the food on offer here, he pulled out the mutton, lettuce, and tomato sandwich he'd grabbed from the Castleteria back before this not-so-little, entirely inadvertent adventure had begun.

“Just so long as you eat up,” Maddie insisted, digging into her vinegar and oyster surprise. “We've still got half the day ahead of us.”

“If the second half is like the first half, it should be pretty easy,” Briar said with a smile.

Hrafn groaned.

“What?” Apple asked as she and Kitty sat down to join them. “What's the matter?”

“Okay, I'm going to lay this out, because _clearly_ none of you have been taking any kind of Villainy classes,” Hrafn said, a hint of a growl in his voice, just to make sure they were all paying attention, because this was something that could go very badly, and he was surrounded by damsels. Kitty and Maddie less so, but Maddie was too carefree and Kitty enjoyed just about every kind of fall-out too much to be wary.

“What do Villainy classes have to do with anything?” Apple asked, horrified.

“Well, in Villainy we covered the Law of Foreshadowing, for a start,” Hrafn said. “Now, do you remember, back in the study hall, asking about the Wonderland school system? Hmm? And where are we now?”

“No way that could have been planned by... whoever is after Lizzy's mom,” Apple denied.

“We had started a Quest by that point,” Hrafn said, “and the Law of Foreshadowing falls within the Purpose of Plot Ephemera that Heroes and Villains are subject to, and which Villains are taught to manipulate in order to make life harder for the Heroes. If no one had said anything about Wonderland School, then we'd have been facing and fighting whoever has it out for the Queen of Hearts in some other manner.”

“You mean, they could be here? At the school?” Lizzy asked, eyes wide.

“Probably in charge of it,” Hrafn said, “given how afraid Mr White Rabbit was of the Vice Principle Principle. Sorry Lizzy, but I don't think we're going to be able to be excused early to go and see your mother.”

“Oh dear,” Lizzy said softly.

“Okay, so why did you groan like that when Briar said, um...” Kitty looked over at Briar, having not caught all of what the other girl had said.

“I said _if the second half is like the first half, it should be easy_ ,” Briar supplied.

“That is what Professor Badwolf calls a Fateful Temptation. This guarantees and has guaranteed effects under the Murphy's Law of Causality,” Hrafn explained. He probably shouldn't be telling these girls about this. This wasn't stuff that Heroes or Damsels got taught. He knew. He'd taken all kinds of classes.

“I'm almost afraid to ask, but... what does that mean?” Briar asked.

“In this case? That one: somebody who can dictate the ease or difficulty of the rest of the school day heard you say that. That two: it will not be alike and it will be harder. Don't forget, Wonderland doesn't do metaphorical,” Hrafn reminded them.

“And things here can get pretty tricky,” Kitty added.

“If they get too tricky, we'll just figure them out,” Apple declared, determinedly up-beat. “Every puzzle has a solution.”

“Oh, what a clever way to put it,” a new presence declared. A girl about their age dressed like a jester, a white diamond over one eye the way Lizzy had a red heart over one of hers, but the other eye hidden by a swirl of hair. “Mind if I take a seat?” the girl asked, and proceeded to sit on the table, between Hrafn and Lizzy. “Kitty, Madeline! It's such a treat to see you back in Wonderland,” the girl continued, shifting so that she was lounging on the table, a smug sort of satisfied smile on her face.

The expression was not at all returned by Maddie or Kitty, both of whom normally had a smile ready for just about everyone.

“Everyone, meet Courtly Jester,” Lizzy presented unhappily. “You might say she's a bit of a wild card around these parts.”

“Oh, why if it isn't little Lizzy Hearts,” Courtly said as she rolled over to face the girl, then slipped off the table, bells jingling, and walked around to Lizzy's other side. “You know, I didn't even notice you sitting there, right next to me.”

That? That was definitely a taunt.

“This is your future queen you're talking to!” Lizzy snapped.

“Oh? Are you now?” Courtly purred, a cruel smile on her face and a wicked gleam in her visible eye.

Hrafn wondered if any of the girls that he was sharing a table with realised that such a remark and attitude was the mark of a person intent on changing something, drastically. Granted, he'd never done that, and there weren't a whole lot of villain-type people attending the same classes as these girls at Ever After High. Likely, they had no idea at all. Knowing and being friends with 'Rebels' was one thing, hanging out with out-and-out Future Villains was another entirely.

Which, based on what he'd just been telling the girls a moment ago, meant that Courtly was probably the Vice Principle Principle, and the person intent on overthrowing the Queen of Hearts.

“So, Courtly, are you a student here at Wonderland High?” Briar asked, hoping to break the tension.

“I'm the Student Body President,” Courtly said, grinning wider than Kitty. “You might say it's my business to know what's going on around here. Speaking of which.” Courtly whipped around to face Apple. “Who are you?”

“Hi, ah, hi I'm Apple White, this is Briar, that's Hrafn,” Apple supplied nervously. “We're from Ever After High.”

Courtly tweaked at the giant bow in Apple's hair.

“And you're here because?” Courtly probed with an air of superiority and false disinterest.

“Well, it's -” Apple started.

“Red Knight's fault,” Hrafn cut in. “Lizzy got an invitation from her mother to attend her birthday spellebration, and I managed to get us through the barrier between worlds. We were on our way there when the Red Knight accosted us and said we unless we had a hall pass from the Vice Principle he was bound to bring us 'back' to a school half of us had never seen before. Very confusing.”

“Oh?” Courtly asked, and casually cartwheeled around the table to try and loom over Hrafn where he was sitting.

“Nothing against the school, the classes are fascinating, but not really what we're used to,” Hrafn assured the girl politely, and was glad that they were saved from any further conversation with the probably-villainous Courtly by the bell going off.

“Oh, there's the bell,” Courtly observed, and hopped up onto the barrier around the mezzanine they'd been sitting on. “Well, it really was so interesting meeting you all,” she said, and jumped backwards with a jingle of her bells. She landed on a giant floating puffer-fish. “Good luck, in your classes.”

~oOo~

“Hrafn, why did you lie to Courtly like that?” Apple asked as they headed for their next class. “It's wrong to lie.”

“I didn't lie,” Hrafn denied. “I didn't tell the whole truth, but everything I said was true.”

“I was thinking maybe we could have asked Courtly for help,” Apple said. “I mean, if she's the Student Body President, maybe she could help us get a meeting with the Vice Principle, help us get hexcused from classes for the rest of the day.”

Hrafn palmed his forehead. Had Apple not retained any of what he'd said about how the Vice Principle was probably the person who was planning on over-throwing the queen? And okay, maybe to Apple that didn't make sense, but Hrafn was the one who had taken Villainy classes and Cross-Cultural References Class. A little trust, maybe?

“I am rather grateful to Hrafn for speaking as he did,” Lizzy stated. “I would not care for word of a plot against my mother to reach the ears of Courtly Jester.”

“If you want to keep it quiet, we'll keep it quiet, but right now?” Briar said, a grin on her face as she raced ahead of them into their next class. “Let's do this!”

“I have a good feeling about -” Hrafn cut himself off. “Chess?” he moaned. “Oh man, why did it have to be chess?”

“It's not that bad,” Apple insisted. “Once you know the rules, you just have to think ahead.”

A barrier popped up around them, and everybody except for Hrafn was lifted up inside of it. A viewing platform, so that everybody else would have a view of the chessboard.

“Ooh, sorry,” Apple said, genuinely apologetic. “I didn't see that one coming.”

The Red Rook slid up to them, his upper turret on level with the raised platform.

“Logic and illogic, strategy and tragedy, I am your instructor,” the soldier of the Red Rook presented himself, giving a polite bow. “Hrafn Queen,” he said, slipping down from his turret to a window level with the only boy in the group. “Time for your quiz.”

“Wait, Hrafn's... a queen?” Apple asked, confused.

“That's what it sounded like,” Kitty agreed, equally puzzled.

“Hrafn did say that technically that prophecy that Mr White Rabbit told us would still apply, that part about six girls? Maybe that's what he meant?” Maddie suggested.

“He's been wearing a crown since he arrived at Ever After High, so he was always some kind of royalty,” Lizzy said. “Though... his being called a queen is certainly odd. Even by Wonderland standards.”

“Do I get to know what I'm being quizzed on?” Hrafn checked as he was whipped away from the girls and onto the chess board proper.

“As a future queen, you will take the part of the White Queen,” the Red Rook instructed, once again at the top of his tower. “White Queen, step aside.”

“I never get to play,” the giant chess-piece woman complained as she picked up her skirts and left the board.

“Hrafn Queen, please take your position on the board,” the Red Rook called down.

“Okay,” Hrafn agreed. He was frustrated at being called _Hrafn Queen_ , to say nothing of being called a future-queen, but decided it was better to just go along rather than kick up a stink about how he was being addressed. Priorities. Also, technicalities. They had to graduate from Wonderland High, after all. “Scuse me, comin' through,” he said as he stepped between the pawns.

“Ready, begin!” the Red Rook said, and his tower whipped back to its starting place on the chess board.

“Alright, Wonderland. Chess or un-chess?” Hrafn muttered to himself. “Ugh, he said logic and illogic, strategy and tragedy, assume un-chess.”

“Hrafn! The pawn in front of you! Move it forward two spaces!” Apple called down.

“All pawns, two-squares advance, march!” Hrafn snapped out as loudly as he could. “Order of White Queen!” he added quickly.

The entire row advanced.

“What? You can't do that! It's against the rules,” Apple objected.

“Un-chess!” Hrafn yelled back.

“Un-chess?” Apple repeated, incredulous, as the Red Queen bypassed her pawns entirely and used her staff to knock one of the pawns off the board.

“Maddie?” Briar entreated. “Can you explain this in a way that makes sense to those of us who weren't raised in Wonderland? And, for that matter, how Hrafn knew what to do?”

“Oh, Hrafn learned about un-chess when he was Student Council President and helped us organise all those wonderful Wonderland Tea Parties last year,” Maddie explained happily. “In un-chess, you can make any move you want, so long as it is not a chess move.”

Hrafn was at a serious height disadvantage in this chess game, but he moved out onto the board anyway.

“Red Knight to Bishop seven!” the Red Queen ordered. Now, that sounded like a chess move, but it wasn't a square on the board that the knight could reach in a single move in a traditional chess game.

“Chase Redford,” Hrafn recognised.

“Sorry about my mom,” Chase offered, lifting his visor enough to be seen through.

“Mothers are mothers, you do the best you can,” Hrafn commiserated politely.

“Yeah. So, uh, sorry about this, but I really do have to -” Chase lowered his visor, “- attack you,” he said, voice distorted by the visor as he raised his sword.

“And that's a real sword,” Hrafn recognised softly.

“Rules are rules,” Chase added apologetically, and brought his sword down.

“Not while I still stand,” the White Knight declared, interposing armour-clad body between Hrafn and Chase.

“My Darling Hero,” Hrafn said softly.

“Just so, my Queen,” the White Knight, who was definitely Darling in disguise, teased right back, equally quietly.

“Stop talking, and attack! Attack!” the Red Queen screamed.

“As you command, Mother,” Chase agreed, and brought his sword to bear against the White Knight once more.

“My Queen, I have blocked the attack, your move,” Darling said, voice seriously distorted by that visor.

“Un-chess, any move at all, White Knight versus Red... I command that this battle is now a Dance Off!” Hrafn declared.

“A what?” Darling asked, stunned.

“Oh, brilliant move by the White Queen!” the Red Rook in charge of the class declared, his tower no longer in its corner. “Drop da beat, yo!” he said, and turned up a couple of turn-tables. His tower shrank down, a pair of giant speakers popped up, and spotlight started swirling.

“Dancing?” Chase squeaked as he put his visor up. “That... that's not what I've trained for.”

Hrafn smirked. That was kind of what he had been counting on when he made that move.

“Use your imagination. Come on ladies,” Hrafn called to the girls up on the viewing platform as two card-ramps flowed out and down to either side of the former chess board, now dance floor. “Chess boards are for chess pieces, but everyone is welcome on a dance floor.”

“Wahoo!” the girls all agreed as they slid down the ramps.

“Let's see what you've got,” Darling the White Knight taunted through her visor.

“You can do this Chase,” the Red Knight said to himself, and dismounted from his chess-piece steed, which quickly vacated the dance floor. His first move was stiff and under the music they could all hear Chase counting the beat to himself.

“Oh please,” the White Knight scoffed, and started dancing. Compared to Chase's attempt, this was smooth and flowing. It was clear right then that the White Knight had a lot more practice dancing, though Hrafn was pretty sure he'd never seen Darling dance like that before. The armour was probably why though.

“Seriously?” Chase asked, before taking his turn. He wobbled a bit in the middle, but he recovered.

Hrafn had to bite his lip to keep from laughing when it was the White Knight's turn again. Those were Daring's dance moves!

“I'm doing it!” Chase cheered himself as he tried something a bit more complicated. “I'm doing it!”

He wasn't doing it. Chase over-balanced completely – which in full plate armour, was not a good thing for staying upright. He fell right off the dance floor.

The music stopped with a scratch of the record.

“The Red Knight has fallen!” the Red Rook declared. “You pass!”

“That White Knight sure has some moves,” Briar said, impressed, as the girls shared a celebratory group hug – with Hrafn in the middle of them all.

“I am really glad they showed up,” Hrafn agreed, careful to not reveal Darling to the other girls. If she'd wanted recognition, she would have hung around. Instead, the White Knight had disappeared as soon as the Red Rook declared that they'd passed.

A clanging bell rang.

“Oh dear, the time is two o'clock and here are the announcements,” Mr White Rabbit's voice came over the speakers. “The Vice Principle has declared that next Thursday shall fall on a Wednesday, the tortoise shall stop mocking the turtle, and Hrafn, Lizzy, Apple, Kitty, Briar, and Maddie's schedules have changed. You will report immediately to Tea Time one-oh-one.”

The floor promptly opened up beneath them all.

~oOo~

It was one of their less gentle landings, and the room was dark until a large spotlight clunked on above them. As well as the spotlight, the screams and cheers and applause of a crowd that wasn't there could be heard. Before, with a click, it was cut off.

“Welcome class,” greeted... it had to be the March Hare. Taller than the White Rabbit, dressed in a manner more alike to Maddie's father than the White Rabbit, and of course, this was Wonderland, so certain characters were more likely than others. He was also holding a button on a wire that dropped down from the ceiling. Probably the source of the canned audience sounds.

“I see you're ready,” the March Hare said happily, releasing the button to hop over to a chord that also hung from the ceiling. “Tea Time has commenced!” he declared, and jumped, grabbed the chord, and let his whole weight pull it down.

Water started flowing in from under foot.

“What is this? Meow! What's going on?” Kitty meowed fretfully. She did not want to get wet.

“This is never how tea time works,” Lizzy denied.

“Where are the bread-and-butterflies?” Maddie asked worriedly, “and there are no chairs to switch places.”

“Wonderland doesn't to metaphorical but it does do puns,” Hrafn said. “We're in a container. A square container. He's making a cube of tea, probably to have with a cup of sugar. Okay, that's the pun. Didn't get us out, so what's the metaphor?”

“Whatever it is, figure it out quickly,” Apple implored as the tea reached knees, then thighs.

“We're in a container. Another word for a container, especially a square one, is a box. We're in a box. We have to figure out what's going on. We have to think. We're thinking inside a box. The way to get out... Think outside the box!” Hrafn said, yelling his final conclusion to the others, even as he vanishing from within and appeared on top of the box with a gentle, purple-and-blue _poof_.

He was even dry, which, considering the tea had been at shoulder height when he had made that vital realisation, was very welcome indeed.

One after another, the girls followed his example.

“We did it!” Apple cheered.

“And just in time too,” Maddie said, smiling again. “You never want to let your tea steep for too long.”

As well as their real laughter, the March Hair added his canned laughter.

“You pass!” the March Hare declared, grinning and giggling himself. “Now I'm off to find a cup of sugar for my cube of tea!” he said.

“Told ya,” Hrafn managed to quip. “Wonderland puns.”

The March Hare pressed the other button on his little remote that had previously provided him with the sounds of an appreciative audience, and the next thing they knew, they were somewhere else.

~oOo~

“Ah!” Apple yelped. “We've shrunk!”

“Either that, or the school has gotten huge,” Hrafn countered.

“Yes,” Lizzy allowed, “it is sometimes a bit hard to tell which.”

Then a giant shoe almost stepped on them all.

“That is it!” Lizzy said, at the end of her (metaphorical, don't go looking for it) rope. “I think it's high time we saw the Vice Principle.”

“Uh, no,” Hrafn reminded her. “Vice Principle Principle is probably the one trying to overthrow your mother, and we are currently in said person's power as students at Wonderland High. Yes, it's frustrating, but we just need to finish out the day. It was two o'clock when we finished the un-chess game, right? So it has to be nearly three, and that means school will be over soon and we'll have graduated and won't be in the Vice Principle Principle's power any more.”

“Either way, what are we supposed to do now?” Briar asked.

“Well, this is the only door we can reach,” Maddie said as she approached, yes, a door. “So clearly it must be the right one to use!”

With the way everything else had been going that day, that sounded about right.

The corridor beyond the door got more cramped as they continued up its length, and the door at the other end had to be crawled through.

Unfortunately, to Hrafn's mind, that door led to the Vice Principle Principle's office. As well as that, upon checking the watch dangling from Kitty's tail, it was minutes until three o'clock. Whether that was fortunate or not, Hrafn wasn't sure.

“Minutes until three o'clock, all of the classes we've been to, we've passed, is this the part of the day where we get our graduation certificates?” Hrafn voiced hopefully.

“Oh, you'd like that, would you?” Courtly demanded as the Vice Principle Principle's chair swung around, revealing her in the seat of power.

Hrafn cracked his knuckles in a way familiar to the girls with him, but rather than a lot of sparkles, a single claw-shaped flame extended, pulled a book off the shelves, and dropped it into Hrafn's hands.

“According to the school rules,” Hrafn said as he read thumbed through the pages. “School is in session only one day a year. Students who pass all of their classes on that day graduate at the end of the school day. The school day ends at three o'clock.” He shut the book with a snap. “Rules are rules.”

“Hm,” Courtly hummed, a vague hint of a smile on her face, not at all the bright grin from when she'd met – and taunted – them earlier in the day.

“I'm confused,” Apple admitted.

Hrafn resisted the urge to tell her she was always confused. It would have been an unfair and unkind exaggeration. Apple was only confused when things didn't fit with how she thought the world worked, and she had a fairly good grasp of most of the things that were logic-based and didn't require any kind of creative thinking at all.

“Courtly is the Vice Principle?” Apple asked. “I thought she was the Student Body President.”

“It's in the school by-laws, if you ever bothered reading them,” Courtly said dismissively. “As Student Body President I am also acting Vice Principle, and as the Vice Principle, I'm also the Principle. See? It's a matter of principal.”

“Then you can help us!” Apple said.

“No, Apple,” Hrafn cut the girl off sharply. “Don't bother asking Miss Jester for help. She won't give it.”

“What?”

Courtly grinned wickedly as she crossed the room and pulled a lever, revealing a large clock. A clock that had just ticked from eleven-oh-one to eleven o'clock. It was running backwards.

“Well, would you look at that. It's only eleven o'clock in the morning, and as you said, school doesn't let out until three. It never gets out at eleven,” Courtly said, a sinister gleam in her eye.

“Time is going backwards?” Apple yelped. “But that's impossible!”

“My clock is all that counts in this school, and my clock says...” Courtly took hold of a lever on the side, and her refined accent was dropped in favour of something much more... cockney. “It will never be three o'clock!” she declared, and she pulled the lever, laughing.

Like a slot machine, three dials spun until they each stopped on a caricature of Courtly's face.

“That's cheating!” Kitty protested when the backwards spinning hands of the clock-face finally stopped at eight-thirty.

“My mother will hear of this!” Lizzy insisted.

“Your mother?” Courtly taunted, cartwheeling onto her desk. “What do I care about your mother? She won't be Queen much longer.”

“Why, it's almost as if -” Maddie said, giggling at first, stopping suddenly when she realised. “It's almost as if you want the plan to overthrow her mother to succeed,” Maddie accused.

For a moment, Courtly just stared at them all with a blank look on her face.

“Of course I do!” came the sudden, angry outburst. “Because it's mine!”

“You?!” Lizzy exclaimed. “You're the traitor?”

Hrafn was pretty sure he'd explained the really high likelihood of that being the case, maybe not of Courtly as a person, but of the Vice Principle Principle who it turned out Courtly was, back during lunch.

“You think you're sooo special because you were born to become a queen,” Courtly mocked, and cartwheeled off the desk. “But, you forget,” she said as she tapped the tip of Lizzy's nose. “A _joker_ can be whatever she wants!” Courtly declared, dancing around, grinning madly, her bells jingling with every move she made. “A joker becomes a queen, it happens all the time! A joker becomes a queen, it happens all the time!”

The girls shared confused looks, while Hrafn (book of school rules still in one hand) folded his arms over his chest and looked back at Courtly with as blank and bland a look as Courtly had given Maddie just a few moments earlier.

“Ugh, don't you ever play cards?” Courtly demanded, frustrated by their lack of reaction.

“Sure,” Hrafn allowed, “but something we do in Ever After before we start just about any card game? We throw. The jokers. Out.”

Courtly looked properly incensed at that. “Security Cards!” she summoned with a yell.

A shuffle of card guards riffled out behind them, and another pair of cards stood either side of Lizzy, who had been separated from the group.

“Escort these girls back to their classes,” Courtly ordered, “where they will spend the rest of their lives!” She topped off her ominous indictment with some manic cackling.

Hrafn was pretty sure that Professor Badwolf would have given her a B plus for it, if Courtly had been in his General Villainy class. Cackling was hard to get just right, after all. Still, it was a good effort. Hrafn wondered if maybe he was a little too detached from the situation he was actually in, if he was thinking like that. Then again, Courtly had said 'girls', and he wasn't one, for all that he'd been called a future-queen by that Red Rook.

“Um...” Maddie, Kitty, Apple and Briar looked over at Hrafn.

“I think she's running on the same technicalities that were mentioned but not hexplained earlier,” Hrafn said, arms still folded over his chest. Yes, the situation didn't look good. No, he wasn't actually all that particularly bothered. He was still holding onto the book of school rules and by-laws.


	15. Chapter 15

“Courtly Jester, you may be a joker, but this is not funny!” Lizzy denounced. “You'll pay for this!”

Oh, now that was a line right out of the Damsel in Distressing Class text book. The one that they shared with Heroics 101 and covered what to do when captured by a Villain and being held in their power. Villains, by contrast, said “You'll pay for that”, rather than this. It was a subtle difference, but an important distinction all the same.

“Ha!” Courtly scoffed. “Not when I am the new queen,” she said, poking Lizzy's nose, a superior smile on her face.

“We'll never let you become queen!” Apple asserted.

“Oh really?” Courtly asked, slipping back into her more posh accent. “This is my school, and we follow my rules,” she explained, crossing the room to get up in Apples face. “And I can do whatever I want.”

Apple, to her credit, didn't cower.

Courtly sprung backwards, landing beside her desk where a pull-chord hung down.

“If you really want to graduate, and leave here,” she said, giggling darkly. “It's easy,” she assured them, all fake sweetness, as she pulled the chord.

The large bookshelf split open down the middle and the two halves rolled sideways. A purple scroll, hanging high up near the top of the revealed space, was the only thing there. It unrolled, dramatically long as it reached the floor and kept rolling, rolling, coming to stop at Lizzy's feet.

“This contract,” Courtly said, sweeping up the very tail end to present it to Lizzy, “stipulates that you've signed over all your rights as heiress to the Queen of Hearts throne... to me.”

“Never,” Lizzy denied.

“It's a simple choice, Lizzy Hearts,” Courtly coaxed, lifting a pen, clicking the nib out, and offering it to the other girl. “You, and your friends, can spend the rest of your lives here at school. Or. Voluntarily sign on the dotted line.”

Pen and contract were pushed into Lizzy's hands, and the security cards waved aside just enough so that Lizzy had a clear view of the group – and they of her.

“I- uh- but- ” Lizzy stammered. “My friends... will be free?” Lizzy asked.

“Woah! Don't do it Lizzy!” Maddie yelped.

“She'll become queen of Wonderland,” Briar added in fearful warning.

“But Briar, she'll let us go,” Lizzy countered. “If we stay here, we're doomed anyway.”

“Doomed?” Hrafn repeated, furiously incredulous. He'd really had enough of this. He'd tried explaining and warning the girls at lunch. He'd tried polite rules lawyer-ing when they arrived in the office. Time to try good-guy-got-mad motivational talk. “Did I just hear Lizzy Hearts say the word 'doomed' in reference to herself?” he demanded, his magic manifesting as flames licking through his hair and around his shoulders, slowly growing in height as he continued to speak. “No, surely not. She is the future Queen of Wonderland, after all. She decides when, where, and how _other people_ are doomed. She does not submit to the orchestrations of a mere _discard_.”

“How dare you!” Courtly growled at Hrafn, and turned on Lizzy. “You. Sign. The contract!” she ordered.

“I.. I won't!” Lizzy denied, throwing the contract down and snapping the pen.

Hrafn took a deep breath, calming himself down. The flames around his hair and shoulders winked out.

“Then you are condemned to detention!” Courtly proclaimed.

“Um, Vice Principle,” the White Rabbit said as he hopped nervously up to Courtly. “Wonderland school rules say you cannot give them detention without -”

Courtly's expression was very unpleasant as she loomed over the White Rabbit, and he hopped backwards nervously until she'd backed him into her desk.

“Without. What.”

“A disciplinary trial. At the school court,” the White Rabbit answered, shaking fearfully.

“Why would I allow that?” Courtly asked with a careless laugh.

“It's your rule,” the White Rabbit supplied.

“Is it? Well then it must be followed,” Courtly allowed. “A trial might be a fun way to find you all guilty. Summon the witnesses. Prepare the court!”

~oOo~

“I am going to say this once,” Hrafn said as they were escorted down a hallway by the card guards, pitching his voice so that all the girls heard him. He'd uncrossed his arms and was speed-reading through the book of school rules and by-laws that Courtly apparently hadn't cared he was still holding. Reading, walking, and talking all at the same time wasn't easy generally, but with a card guard's hand on his shoulder guiding him, it was do-able. “Let. Me. Do. The talking.”

“What?” Apple yelped.

“You think you can get us out of this?” Lizzy asked hopefully.

“I've bested Apple at debate, taken Cross-Cultural References, organised all those Wonderland Tea Parties last year, have a fairly good grasp on Riddlish, and I'm also the only one here who has taken both Heroics and Villainy classes,” Hrafn reminded them. “Yes, I can get us out – but only if none of you say anything.”

“We're in your hands,” Briar said solemnly, all the other girls murmuring agreement.

“Thank you,” Hrafn sighed gratefully. That was the last they heard clearly from him for the rest of the walk. His muttering took on that interesting echoing quality of when he was chanting a spell for a moment though, which made all of the girls very curious. Especially since, so far as they could see, nothing happened.

~oOo~

“I will be your counsel for the defence,” the White Rabbit said as they approached the doors of the courtroom.

“Thanks for the offer, Mr White Rabbit,” Hrafn said, “but I've got this.”

“Yes, thank you, Mr White Rabbit, but in this matter, Hrafn has our full confidence,” Lizzy agreed.

“Well, if you're certain,” the White Rabbit said, though he continued to twitch nervously.

Then the courtroom doors opened, and the card guards ushered them in. Platform and waist-high cage appeared around them, showing them to be the ones on trial.

“Remember, not a word,” Hrafn warned them, as he moved to the front of the group and swung his legs over the barrier so that he was sitting on it.

“Who are you?” the Caterpillar judge asked.

“I am Hrafn of Ever After,” Hrafn answered clearly. “With me, Lizzy Hearts, future Queen of Hearts; Madeline Hatter and Kitty Cheshire, citizens of Wonderland; Apple White, future Queen of Ever After, and Briar Beauty, a citizen of Ever After. For the record, your Honour, I should like the true and exact time of the beginning of this trial to be made known. School lets out at three o'clock, after all. Any attempts to claim school prerogative after that time and prior to eight-thirty in the morning on the next school day are not legally binding.”

“This is true,” the Caterpillar agreed. “Witness for the Defence, the Vice Principle's clock!” he summoned, and slammed down a gavel.

“Not a word,” Hrafn whispered the fierce reminder at the girls behind him when they gasped fearfully.

The clock was brought in, the slot-wheels all still stuck on Courtly's face, but the clock-face was what had the court gasping in surprise.

It read three-oh-five.

“If it pleases, your honour, the school day is ended before this trial is begun. We have passed all of our classes. According to the school rules, by-laws, and the custom of Wonderland, recognition of graduation is the only matter remaining,” Hrafn stated, the book of rules held in front of him. “That's logic.”

“Hm,” the Caterpillar hummed. “That is logic,” he agreed, and slammed his gavel down.

The cage sank back down into the floor, Hrafn fortunately landing on his feet rather than his rear, as he had been sitting on it rather than standing in it.

“You are all free to go,” the Caterpillar declared. “School is out.”

“Yay!” all of the girls cheered, pulling into a group hug around Hrafn.

“Oh thank you Hrafn,” Lizzy said. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome,” Hrafn answered, “but don't we have a party to get to?”

“Yes,” Lizzy confirmed, her smile fierce and victorious. “We do.”

~oOo~

“I am glad you are all safe,” the White Knight said by way of greeting when they all exited the school gate.

“No knowing for how long though,” Hrafn said, hustling everybody into movement away from the school. “We resolved that disciplinary trial before the prosecution could show up. Miss Jester will probably be having a screaming tantrum right about now.”

“How did you know that the clock would tell the right time?” Briar asked.

“Ah, I may have spelled it to while we were being led to the courtroom,” Hrafn said. “Of course, I couldn't spell the one clock specifically while I didn't have access to it, so I kinda... blanketed all of the clocks in range with a spell to force all the clocks to tell the time truly and accurately.”

“That's certainly impressive,” Lizzy said admiringly, and also a little worried.

“My range just about covered the whole school, and the spell only lasts for the next five minutes after casting it,” Hrafn finished sheepishly. “If the clock is inclined to run fast, slow, or even backwards like Miss Jester's, then it will start doing that shortly after the spell is cast.”

“May I offer a short cut to the palace?” the White Rabbit offered hopefully, with a gesture to an open rabbit hole.

“You may,” Lizzy agreed.

“If my teleporting magic is working again, then I'll go on ahead,” Kitty offered, and with a grin – vanished.

“Looks like Kitty's adjusted,” Hrafn observed. “That's good.”

~oOo~

The rabbit hole didn't quite come out near the palace. That is to say, the grand structure was in sight, but only just.

“This is not the palace,” Lizzy said as she picked her self up off the ground. Landing after leaving a rabbit hole was rarely perfectly smooth.

“Oh dear,” the White Rabbit said apologetically. “We must have taken a wrong turn at that last tea pot.”

“Calm down,” Hrafn advised. “Kitty's transportation magic can only take herself, but I can take all of us if I know where I'm going. That's the palace, right?” he checked, pointing to the distant structure.

“Yes,” Lizzy confirmed.

“Then I know where I'm going,” Hrafn declared. “Everybody in close. We'll have to make a few stops on the way, just to make sure I don't land us somewhere awkward.”

A couple of hill-top stops, to make sure they were still on course, and they reached the gates of the palace. There was a long line of gift-givers awaiting entrance, but Lizzy marched right past them, and the rest of the group kept up.

“Step aside,” Lizzy ordered the card guards.

“Yes, your Highness,” the cards said, snapping to attention as she and the rest of the group passed through.

“My mother!” Lizzy exclaimed, spotting a tall figure in red. “There she is!” and off Lizzy ran.

The rest of them hung back. Let the mother-daughter couple have their reunion.

“Hey guys,” Kitty said, appearing in their midst.

“Kitty,” Hrafn greeted in turn. “Find your mother?”

“Uh-huh,” Kitty confirmed happily.

“And the Storybook of Legends?” Apple pressed.

“That too, uh, well, sort of. Come on,” Kitty instructed, and waved for them to follow her.

“I will remain with Lizzy, just in case I am needed,” the White Knight said.

With one last glance at the happily reunited mother and daughter, who were telling each other how much they'd missed the other and how much they loved the other, the group sans knight followed after Kitty.

~oOo~

“What is this place?” Apple asked as she looked around the great, cavernous space.

“The Queen's present room,” Kitty explained. “Where all of the gifts given to the Queen of Hearts are kept. Including my mother's, which was the Storybook of Legends.”

“Uh, Hrafn? Could you do that magic book-finding trick again?” Briar asked hopefully.

“Alright, original chant, because that's really enough right now,” Hrafn decided. “Everybody paying attention? To find the item which you seek, just say these words, and here's a peek,” he intoned, and the same purple fire claw extended from his hands. It circled the towering piles of gifts, picked some up and dropped them down, before it finally stopped. The claw hovered a moment, and tapped one pointed finger on the book that sat, wrapped in a bow, on the very top of one of the towering stacks of gifts.

“There it is!” Apple cheered.

“Got it!” Kitty declared, vanishing from among them and reappearing where the book was. A moment later, and she was back down with them, book in hand.

“The Storybook of Legends,” Apple breathed, and reverently took the large, heavy book from Kitty.

“Okay, so that's one thing. There's still the matter of Courtly wanting to overthrow the Queen of Hearts,” Hrafn reminded them.

~oOo~

When they returned to the party, there was chaos. Not the usual Wonderland kind. The White Knight was duelling the Red Knight, though they seemed to be heading off side and down a corridor. The guests had scattered, and Lizzy and her mother were being physically shielded by card guards, against magical attacks from Courtly Jester.

“What the hex are you doing with that?!” Hrafn yelled, eyes fixed on the book in Courtly's hands.

“Oh? Recognise my little book, do you?” Courtly asked teasingly as she ran a finger over the cover of the book.

“You don't know what you're playing with,” Hrafn warned. “Put it down before someone gets hurt.”

“Certain people getting hurt is rather the point, and besides, someone's got to pick up where she left off,” Courtly pointed out, stroking the cover again, grinning cruelly. “Might as well be me.”

“That's the Evil Queen's spell book,” Apple exclaimed.

“That's right. Oh, and you've brought the Storybook of Legends! Why, I think I'll take it from you, and then I'll sign Lizzy's page, and I'll steal her destiny too!”

“No!” Apple refuted fearfully, and clutched the book tightly to her chest.

“Would you look at me, lowly Courtly Jester, all set to inherit the power of _two_ queens, no less!” Courtly boasted. “And once I've conquered Wonderland, Ever After's next on my list! With this spell, I lay waste the past,” the girl chanted, reading the spell from the book. A blue streamer of magic flowed out of the book and towards the hand Courtly wasn't holding it with, but rather waving about. “- and seal your fate -” the magic became a ball of power over her hand. “- with a savage blast!”

Small mercies, that it turned out Courtly didn't have the best aim. Or rather, that Hrafn could perform a teleporting spell really quickly and got everybody out of the way just in time.

“Where are you?” Courtly demanded, pulling more blasting spells out of the book. “Where are you?! I'm going to get you!”

“I don't know if it's Courtly herself, or the book, but those spells are a lot more powerful than I hexpected,” Hrafn admitted.

“Are you saying you can't win without your full powers?” Kitty asked, worriedly.

“The ones you don't have access to?” Maddie added.

“The ones I'll only get by signing my page in the Storybook of Legends,” Hrafn agreed, looking at the book as though he'd rather set in on fire than sign it. “Which I normally don't need, and in general don't want.” He'd done a bit of research on the book itself, after Thronecoming and finding out that Headmaster Grimm only had a fake.

What he'd learned was that, for people without a clear-cut destiny – like him and Darling for example – the Storybook of Legends was less about binding them to their destiny and more unlocking their final potential so that they could go and discover their destinies. Which sounded great in theory, but it did still have actual destinies in its pages, and – as Courtly had implied – if anybody signed any page dictating a specific destiny, then that destiny would be theirs. Potentially stealing it from the person who it rightfully belonged to. That Headmaster Grimm kept it locked up most of the year had made a lot more sense once Hrafn had learned that. It was a potentially very dangerous artefact.

“I know you've made jokes about how you don't like that destiny because it has you wearing a dress,” Apple started, and held the book out to Hrafn. “But -”

“It doesn't have to mean that you become that person,” Briar offered comfortingly, the only person present other than Hrafn himself who knew his legacy. She braced her hands on his shoulders and looked him in the eye, to make sure he was listening to her. “I don't believe it's in you to be that person. I know you take villainy classes as well as hero classes, but at the very centre of you, in your heart, you are a good person, Hrafn. Go ahead and sign the book, and then defy all of your parents expectations. All of them.”

“Okay,” Hrafn agreed. “Okay,” he repeated, and stepped back from Briar just enough so that he could face Apple. She was still holding the book, after all. He took it, opened it, found his page, and a white feather quill appeared in a flourish of magic. “All of you, as soon as I've signed this, take cover with Lizzy and her mother,” he ordered them.

He waited until they'd nodded before he signed it.

“What do you mean _the evil powers of his mother_?!” Maddie yelped suddenly. “Young Narrator!?”

Hrafn grunted in pain as the power flooded into him, so strong that it lifted him off his feet. It settled into him, and set him back on his feet.

“Run,” he reminded them, his eyes glowing with magic. “I've got the Jester,” he added with a sinister smirk before he vanished from their company and into Courtly's line of sight.

Blasting spells were exchanged. Courtly had to dodge, while Hrafn simply shielded against them, chasing after her.

“Oh, he's too strong!” Courtly complained, flicking through the book. “There's got to be a better spell in here.”

“There's more than one way to read a book, Miss Jester,” Hrafn said, voice distorted with power as a streamer of magic flowed from his hand to the book Courtly was holding. It grabbed hold of the book and brought it back to Hrafn. For a moment, it simply floated over his hand, before disappearing in a flow of purple fire into his hand. “All done,” Hrafn said, his grin dangerously toothy.

Surrounded entirely by a corona of magenta flames, Hrafn was lifted into the air. An avenging demon as more power gathered in his hands, before he lanced it down at Courtly, crushing her into the ground and stripping her of any and all of her magical powers. The ground cratered, Courtly at the bottom in the middle of the new sharp dip in the earth.

Hrafn landed on the edge of the crater he had created. He was still surrounded by that corona of magenta flames from the tips of his floating hair to the bottoms of his booted feet, and his eyes still glowed with magic.

“Hrafn! This isn't you!” Apple called over. “I know it isn't!”  
“You don't know a cursed thing about me, Miss White,” Hrafn said, his voice twisted and echoing.

“Maybe she doesn't, but I do,” Briar said as she marched over, as fearlessly as she knew how, and dared to latch on to an arm despite the magical fire that surrounded him. “And this? This is _not you_. Are you choosing to be _this_?”

Hrafn pressed his free hand to his head, and the fire vanished. The magical glow winked out. He swayed where he stood.

“Ooh, power-rush,” Hrafn moaned, eyes clamped shut against painful sunlight. “Not fun.”

“I gotcha,” Briar reassured him, supporting his weight and steadying him on his feet.

“Thank you,” Hrafn said gratefully, and peeled his fingers back from his face to let the light back in slowly. “She won't be going anywhere,” he added, peeking down into the crater at Courtly. “I took away pretty much all of her powers.”

He could cannibalise other people's magic now. Learned something new every day. Ooh, and that book was going to give him a headache tomorrow as the knowledge it contained settled properly into his brain.

“Guards!” called out the Queen of Hearts. “Arrest Courtly Jester at once! And as for you, young man. I owe you a tremendous debt of gratitude. You are hereby invited to my birthday party!”

“We would be honoured, your Majesty,” Hrafn said gratefully, “and I think I know the perfect gift.”

~oOo~

Guests were retrieved, and Hrafn bowed before the Queen of Hearts.

“Your Majesty, with your permission,” Hrafn said.

“Proceed,” she permitted with a wave and a smile.

“From bad to good, to better from worse. From Wonderland I now remove this curse!” Hrafn declared, purple fire blooming in his hand and growing as it stretched up into the sky towards the curse-cloud. “The nightmare is done. The day has dawned. So let's join as one, and party on!”

The magic rippled outwards, the curse burned out in its wake, and Wonderland freed from its influence at last.

The barrier between the worlds came down as well, and as a bonus, a few people with Wonderland connections appeared in a flash of gold. Maddie's father, Alistair and Bunny, Darling's brothers, Mrs Her Majesty the White Queen and her daughter... Hrafn decided to add a little more oomph to the spell, and transported a few more Ever After students to join the party. Hopper and Cupid, Cerise and Cedar, Hunter and Ashlynn, the O'Hair twins, Melody Piper, Blondie...

“Uh, Hrafn? Do you mind being moral support while I, er, make a confession to Apple?” Briar asked, the Storybook of Legends held to her chest.

For all that Hrafn had denied any knowledge of Briar's activities and intentions at the time, he did know what she was talking about.

“Sure,” he agreed.

“What's up?” Apple asked when they'd found her and towed her out onto a balcony.

“Well, I've been trying to tell you for a while,” Briar started, stammering a little as she began. “See, it's my fault that the Storybook of Legends ended up here in the first place. I, sort of, threw it down the Well of Wonder,” Briar confessed.

“What?” Apple gasped. “But why?”

“I didn't want to have to follow my destiny,” Briar explained, the words coming out in a pained rush. “Sleeping my life away and losing all my friends?” Briar turned away from Apple, the damning book hugged to her chest. “Why should I be forced to live that life, if it's not the one I want?”

“Things used to be so simple,” Apple said as she moved to stand beside her best friend. “You signed the book, you lived your destiny. But now?” she peeled the book out of Briar's hold. “If this book can be used to steal a destiny? Maybe it's more trouble than it's worth.”

“Did she just say what I think she just said?” Hrafn checked with Briar.

“Oh, I still want my Happily Ever After,” Apple assured them both, “but I don't want our stories in danger of being stolen. They should be ours, to choose or to change. Maybe it's time to... shelve this book.”

“She saying what I think she's saying?” Hrafn checked with Briar again.

“I think so,” Briar agreed.

“Well, best to do that once we're back in Ever After,” Hrafn said, and took the book from Apple to place in – he loved that he'd been able to learn this trick from Maddie – a pocket that should have been too small to hold it. “Headmaster Grimm deserves to see it happen, I think. Probably on Blondie's live mirror-cast show, so that he can't stop it.”

“I suppose that's fairest,” Apple agreed with a weak little smile.

Just then, the Red Knight and the White Knight, still duelling fiercely, reached the party. The Red Knight was being forced to retreat with every strike from the White Knight. Party-goers moved out of the way, watching as the White Knight finally kicked the Red Knight in the middle of his chest plate, sending him to the ground and his sword skidding away.

“Alright,” gasped the Red Knight. “I yield! You win!” Chase removed his helmet and stood, an expression of genuine admiration on his face. “What a knight! What skill! What power! What manner of man are you?”

The White Knight paused, and looked around the party – you could tell, because the helmet turned.

Hrafn bit his lip, and slipped between the rest of the party-goers so that he was nearer the impressive suit of armour. He ended up standing next to Cerise. Even Lizzy and the Queen of Hearts descended to witness, up close, this reveal.

“Actually, I am no manner of man,” the White Knight said, then reached up to remove their helmet. “I'm a girl,” Darling declared, revealed to all.

Shock and awe were the general reactions, and a little bit of boy-meets-girl _wow_ was on Chase Redford's face.

“Darling! You're okay!” Dexter exclaimed, joyfully relieved.

“You know what?” Daring said, Dexter's drink dripping from his hair, “this time, I'm too stunned to even care.”

“I guess you'd all like an hexplanation of what I've been up to?” Darling guessed, and disengaged her armour. It was a nifty trick, allowing her to step out of the armour without having to worry about all the individual pieces. “Well sorry,” she said, as she climbed down. The armour was a lot bigger than she was, after all. “That story is best told another day. I believe right now, it's time to party!”

Hrafn asked Cerise for a dance.


	16. Chapter 16

“Are we ready?” Blondie asked.

“I'm ready,” Hrafn confirmed.

“Ready,” Dexter agreed, “and rolling!”

“Blondie here at Book End with breaking news!” the budding journalist said into the camera, smiling brightly.

It was the day after the Wonderland Adventure, for those who had been part of it, and everybody was back in Ever After once more.

“Last night, the Wonderland Curse was broken, the barrier between the realms unsealed, and the Storybook of Legends was found!” Blondie reeled off excitedly. “The young man chiefly responsible for all of these amazing achievements, Hrafn, is with me now.”

“Hello Blondie,” Hrafn said for the camera. “But I'm not taking all the credit. I had a lot of help.”

“How did it happen?” Blondie probed eagerly.

Hrafn recounted an abridged version of how they'd found the Wonderland Curse, ended up in Wonderland accidentally while trying to break the curse, and how, once in Wonderland, Hrafn was able to figure out the right way to break the curse, which enabled the barrier to be unsealed.

“And what about the Storybook of Legends?” Blondie pressed. “We all remember what happened on Legacy Day, and then the discovery at Thronecoming that the book we'd all previously believed to be the Storybook of Legends was actually a fake.”

“Blondie, I present to you, the real Storybook of Legends,” Hrafn declared, and produced the book with a flourish.

“Oh my goodness!” Blondie exclaimed. “Will you be handing it over to Headmaster Grimm for current and future generations to sign?”

“I'm afraid not. While in Wonderland, some of us learned that it was possible to steal someone else's destiny by signing their page,” Hrafn revealed. “Those who were present for that discovery agreed that, given the potential danger of such, it would be better to shelve this book.”

“Oh my,” Blondie gasped. “With the potential for destinies being stolen, I can certainly understand that.”

Hrafn stepped back, and Dexter shifted to a wider angle on the mirror-pad as the Storybook of Legends was magically lifted out of Hrafn's hands. Pages came loose, pictures of students briefly visible to the mirror-pad before each page became a small ball of golden light. Hrafn spun a little bit of purple fire between his hands, and shot it at the book, speeding up the process.

“Now, everyone can write their own stories,” Hrafn said, as those little golden lights shot off and away, each little light finding the student who would have signed the page they had been. “Whether we want to follow the path of our fairy tale ancestors, or blaze a new trail. The choice is in our hands, and our hearts.”

It would also unlock everybody's potential, the way signing it had allowed Hrafn to inherit his mother's power. He wondered if it would sort out Hopper's issues with turning into a frog as well... he hoped so.

“That sounds just right,” Blondie said, as her own page flashed gold and darted into her, giving her a warm jolt.

When the mirror-cast was over, Dexter had one more question for his room mate.

“Are you going to cut your hair? It grew magically when you went through that rabbit hole into Wonderland, right?”

Hrafn reached back and pulled one of his, now longer, dark curls forward over his shoulder, and twisted it around in his fingers thoughtfully.

“I kinda like it,” he admitted. “I've always just had this mess of curls that I tried to restrain with my crown, but now? It's actually, surprisingly, a lot easier to control with the little bit of extra weight and length.”

“And it looks good, too,” Blondie offered with a giggle. “Not so long that it looks feminine, not so short that you can't control the curls. It's just right.”

“Well, with a recommendation like that, I guess I'd better keep it this length,” Hrafn said with a smile.

~oOo~

“Hrafn! I broke a nail, and gave myself a splinter!” Cedar said, stopping him in the hall.

“Ouch,” Hrafn said with a sympathetic wince, and waved a little magic at the proffered finger. He could have just pulled out the splinter, but that wouldn't have also fixed the broken nail. He liked Cedar. She was a nice girl and a good friend – she'd been so much fun to hang out with in Woodshop. So, quick magic fix.

“Hrafn! I toasted marshmallows with dragon fire, and the soot stained my teeth! Please can you fix them?” Daring begged.

As tempting as it was to just take a picture – Dexter still needed reminders that his older brother wasn't perfect now and then, and even if he'd uploaded his 'yearbook' to the e-corn, Hrafn was always happy to expand his photo collection of Daring's food-on-face mishaps – Hrafn just shook his head and magicked the other boy's teeth clean before he continued down the hall. He managed to reach the main stairs before he was stopped by someone else with a problem.

“I dropped my mirror-pad,” Blondie said, holding it up to him so he could see the horribly cracked screen, “and can't film my mirror-cast this afternoon.”

“What's it on?” Hrafn asked with a cheeky smile as he sent a spell at the mirror-pad to fix it. “Any chance I can get the inside scoop before the rest of the school?”

“Sorry Hrafn, it's just the popularity ratings today,” Blondie said with a giggle. “I know it's not really anything you're interested in, but your ratings are up,” she added.

Hrafn chuckled, and waved Blondie off as he headed down the stairs. He didn't get far before a pair of very big feet stopped him.

“Hey Tiny,” Hrafn greeted.

“The Billy Goats are in a jam,” Tiny said, and held a very large jar low enough to be at eye level to Hrafn. The Billy Goats were all three of them stuck in the neck of the jar. “And it's my jam!”

“Not cool, guys,” Hrafn scolded as he tugged them out of the jar with magic – it got them all out at the same time, and cleaned the jam off at the same time. They had definitely gotten stuck like that by diving in to eat Tiny's jam.

Once the Billy Goats were free and clean, Hrafn used another magic spell to replenish the amount of jam in the jar. The jam industry might not thank him for that, or it might. Figuring giants into a kingdom's economy was tricky sometimes.

“There you go,” Hrafn said as he capped off the jam jar with a water-proof cloth and a truly giant rubber band. “That should keep them from repeating the attempt as well,” he added. “But keep it out of reach, just in case.”

“Thanks Hrafn.”

For all that magic was a common enough thing in Ever After, and there were plenty of students who could use it, most of them couldn't use it as casually as Hrafn, or for as many different purposes – Melody, for example, did Melodic Manipulation really well, but didn't have much magical skill outside of music. Only two other students even approached Hrafn's ability to casually throw magic around: Farrah and Faybelle. Farrah could just wave her wand, yes, but whatever she'd magicked got undone at noon. Faybelle could do spells easily enough, but she wasn't really interested in using her magic to help anybody but her. Most of the other magic-capable students did potions, or used long chants, or (like Melody) only had one area that their magic really worked in.

And people liked magic. Liked seeing it. Hrafn had inadvertently drawn a small crowd as he was walking through the halls, and it had grown dramatically while he was helping Tiny and the Billy Goats.

“Help me next, Hrafn!” was the catch-cry of his fellow students all around him.

“Alright people, as much as I could do spells all day, and I'm happy to help, I've got a dragon that needs feeding,” he said, begging off.

He really did. He'd had Advanced Villainy that morning, and both Professor Badwolf and Professor Knight had wanted to cover how Heroes and Villains should handle dragons – beyond just riding them, though that had been included. Which meant he'd been asked to bring in Nevermore, Daring had been asked to bring in Legend, and the class had discussed the dragon of Withering Heights, (which as a wild, untamed dragon, could not be brought to class, and also had to be treated differently to a tame dragon).

~oOo~

“Oh, what happened to you girl?” Holly cooed while Poppy pet the tiny Nevermore Hrafn had cradled in his arms.

“She decided she wanted to stay with me through Magicology,” Hrafn explained to the twins, “and someone else in class didn't notice that there was a tiny dragon sniffing curiously at their hexperiment. At least it only caused a colour-splosion, but it's still a kind of messy make-over.”

The girls giggled at Hrafn's choice of phrasing.

To be fair, everybody in class had been a bit distracted when Nevermore had gotten into the vials with their volatile contents. Humphrey Dumpty had actually been climbing the Beanstalk, and had gotten pretty high before he'd climbed the wrong stem and got caught out on a limb. Whereupon Jillian had gone to help him, and when he wouldn't jump to her, she'd placed herself in false but very convincing danger, and Humphrey had really stepped up.

Humphrey and Jillian had then jumped off the Beanstalk, hand in hand, and parachuted down to a safe landing. Very impressive. Hrafn was kind of hoping they'd get together. Hey, just because he was a guy, didn't mean he couldn't be the kind of romantic that wanted to set up all his friends and see them get their Happily Ever Afters.

“We could groom Nevermore for you,” Holly offered, bringing Hrafn out of his thoughts and back to the present.

“It sure sounds like a job for Holly and Poppy,” Poppy agreed.

“The O'Hair Twins!” the two sisters finished together, and smiled bright, hopeful, eager smiles.

“What do you think, girl?” Hrafn asked Nevermore, gently scratching behind her forehead gem. “A bit of pampering?”

Nevermore chirped a pleased purr at the idea.

“Do you have scale polish?” Hrafn asked the twins. “I'm afraid I'm just about out, and I haven't gone to get more yet.”

“Oh, right,” Holly realised, just a little sheepishly. “We can't use hair-care products to clean a dragon.”

“And this mess probably looks different on all her different sizes,” Hrafn said, “since it's a magical mess. Nevermore? Medium-size?” he checked.

Nevermore chirped agreement, hopped down from his hold, and sized up once she was on the ground. The mess that had been made of her scales sized up with her.

“Yep,” Hrafn said with a sigh. “Going to have to give you three baths.”

Nevermore slumped and curled her tail around herself apologetically, shrinking back down to her tiny-and-cute form.

“I'm not mad at you girl, I promise,” Hrafn assured her as he picked her up again. “But this is going to take a while. How about we take this afternoon to get supplies,” he suggested to Holly and Poppy. “We've all got Beast Training and Care tomorrow morning, right? Professor Poppa Bear will let us spend the class grooming her if we ask.”

“Sure!”

“It's a plan!”

~oOo~

“Wow but this stuff doesn't want to come off,” Holly commented as she scrubbed Nevermore's scales.

They had so far gotten tiny-and-cute Nevermore clean, medium-sized Nevermore, and were finally cleaning up Nevermore's largest size.

“You said it,” Poppy agreed, “and we're almost out of scale polish,” she added, dunking her cloth into the water bucket.

They washed Nevermore's scales before polishing them, so there was more than just one bucket in use on this job.

Poppy accidentally knocked the bucket of water over as she removed the cloth she was using and turned back to wash Nevermore. Since it was the water bucket, rather than the scale polish bucket, that wouldn't have been a problem. Except that she knocked it onto Nevermore's nose, and of course, Nevermore didn't like that.

“Aah!” the girls yelped as they dodged Nevermore's suddenly-unfurled wings.

Poppy caught the empty bucket when Nevermore threw it off, but splashed water and a thrown bucket wasn't the end of Nevermore's making a mess. She crashed through wooden beams and knocked things off shelves – and yes, tipped the bucket of scale polish all over Holly's head.

“Woah girl, calm down,” Hrafn called out. “Easy girl, easy,” he said, coaxing her back down from her panic. “I know, water up your nose isn't nice. Calm down.”

Nevermore landed, but unfortunately landed on a pile of junk (this stable really needed cleaning out), and sent it flying up into the air. A lot of it landed too-near or on her, and Nevermore let loose a gout of fire in displeasure. A gout of fire that she didn't look where she was aiming. Hrafn magicked up a hasty barrier for the fire to dissipate across, rather than let it burn either himself or the O'Hair twins.

“Easy girl,” he said again, and approached Nevermore to start petting her into calming down. “Just a nasty surprise, that's all. No danger here. You're fine. We're fine.”

“I think we're going to need some kind of armour if we're going to stay in the dragon grooming business,” Holly said from beneath the saddle she'd pulled over her head to protect her from any more flying objects (or fire).

“Uh huh,” Poppy agreed.

“You do get harder to handle as you get bigger, don't you girl,” Hrafn said with a rueful smile as he continued to pet Nevermore back into complacency. “And Legend doesn't have your clever size-shifting trick, but she's older and more relaxed, so I guess it balances out.”

Despite the upset, they managed to get Nevermore completely clean before lunch. It helped that Hrafn could magic the scale polish out of Holly's hair and back into a bucket so they could keep using it. Holly still wanted to wash her hair properly, apparently magicking hair clean felt odd, but she was clean enough that she was content to leave her own personal grooming for later.

~oOo~

Nevermore was settled, tiny, in her nest in Hrafn and Dexter's dorm room, and Hrafn himself had gone down to lunch.

“Over here, Hrafn!” Cerise called, and waved for him to join her and Darling at their table.

“Hello ladies,” Hrafn said as he slid onto the bench opposite them. “How was Grimmnastics this morning? Worked up an appetite?” he teased lightly, with a glance at the roast leg of meat, bone and all, that was sitting on Cerise's lunch tray, as well as the six sushi rolls on Darling's.

“It was great,” Cerise said, smiling, “though I can see we're not the only ones who worked up an appetite.”

Hrafn had stacked three mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwiches onto his lunch tray, as well as grabbed a baked potato topped with melted cheese and crispy bacon bits.

“Nevermore had a colourful accident yesterday afternoon, and Holly and Poppy helped me groom her today in Beast Training and Care,” Hrafn said as he picked up his first sandwich. “I can hold onto her when she's tiny and gets spooked by a knocked over bucket, and I can generally keep her still when she's her usual juvenile size. Not so much when she's almost-adult sized.”

Nevermore could get big, yes, but she wasn't actually an adult dragon yet, so even with her being able to magically shrink and grow at will, she still had some actual growing to do.

“Hey guys,” Apple said walking up to them, an unfamiliar red-head next to her. “I'd like you to meet the new girl. This is Mira.”

“What's down?” Mira said.

“Up,” Apple corrected softly. “What's _up_.”

“Ugh. What's up, new friends?” Mira said.

Introductions began.

“I'm Darling, Darling Charming.”

“Cerise Hood. What school did you -”

“I was home schooled,” Mira answered before the question could be finished.

“Well, hello, and welcome to Ever After High,” Ashlynn said as she and Lizzy joined them. “I'm Ashlynn, and this is Lizzy. Love your outfit,” she added with a smile.

“And I'm Hrafn,” Hrafn said as he cast an eye over all of the girls now sitting at the same table as he had been invited by Cerise to join. “Ladies, if you will excuse me, though I hate to leave your side -” he picked up Cerise's hand in his best, dramatically-gallant manner as taught by Dr King Charming and passed on by Dexter when he was working on his Wooing thronework. “- I'd better go before the guys get upset at me for stealing all of your attention.”

The girls laughed, though Mira looked a little stricken as Hrafn stood up.

“That was Hrafn? The Hrafn? I've heard so much about him!” he heard behind him as he went to find where Hopper or Dexter, or maybe even Humphrey Dumpty, were sitting.

Hrafn didn't, officially, have classes on Friday afternoons. In general though, he either joined Dexter and Hopper in Science and Sorcery, slipped into a practice room off the Muse-ic class (where Humphrey and Sparrow were), or joined Cerise and Cedar in Woodshop.

Just because he'd dropped those classes didn't mean he hadn't enjoyed them.

Some weeks he just chilled in the student lounge, or headed down to Book End, but generally he got in more class time in classes he wasn't actually taking. The summer term classes were flexible about letting extra students in, on a casual basis, provided they a) didn't disrupt the class, and b) weren't skipping out of a class that they were actually enrolled in.

But he wasn't going to just drop into a friend's class without asking if they'd be cool sharing their space with him. Well, except Muse-ic sometimes, because the practice rooms were all private and sound-proof, so he wouldn't necessarily be disturbing Sparrow or Humphrey if he joined that class.

~oOo~

Ah the weekend. No classes, just extracurriculars and hanging out with friends. Dexter, Hrafn was pleased to note, was taking Cupid out on a date.

“You should go on a date too,” Dexter suggested, a lot more confident about giving that kind of advice now than he would have been a year ago. Part of that was that they had become good friends since being made room mates back when Hrafn arrived at Ever After High, but a lot of it was Cupid's influence. “Seriously, you used to take a different girl to a different party every month,” Dexter continued. “When was the last time you asked a girl out?”

Hrafn thought about that for a moment.

“Farrah's surprise party?”

“No Hrafn. I mean asked a girl to be your date, in advance. I don't mean just asking a girl to dance when you're both already at a party,” Dexter clarified, wagging a censuring finger at his friend.

Hrafn pulled a face and thought a little more.

“The True Hearts Day Dance? No, I met up with Cerise there, and we shared heart-flowers, but I hadn't asked her in advance. Um... Last year's Blue Moon Forest Fest then,” he admitted. “I invited Faybelle.”

“What about this year's Blue Moon Forest Fest?” Dexter asked, confused. “You did get an invitation, didn't you? And you went, right? That was after True Hearts Day”

“I got an invitation,” Hrafn confirmed. “I gave it to Alistair and Bunny, as well as a letter of apology to deliver for me to the Fairy Queen. I had a concussion from whatever we'd been doing in Grimmnastics that day. I was confined to bed-rest.”

“Oh,” Dexter said softly, an apologetic expression on his face before he firmed his resolve. “Then it's been over a year since you asked any girl on a date. I owe you for getting me and Cupid together, so I'm not going to let you just... just... Sit around doing nothing in our room all weekend!” he exclaimed, waving his arms around.

“Who should I ask on a date, then?” Hrafn asked, genuinely curious to see if Dexter could come up with an answer for this. He'd done casual friendly dating in his first year a lot, yes, but he'd mostly been using those dates as a way to make friends, rather than find romance. And yes, there was a girl he was interested in that way, but he was curious to see if Dexter had figured out who that was. So, he wasn't going to give his friend and room mate any clues there.

“Er...” Dexter hesitated. “Um... well... how did you know that Cupid and I would be good together?”

“Cupid was and is the only girl you never get nervous around, not counting your sister,” Hrafn stated plainly, “and she had a massive crush on you that you had somehow missed.”

“Oh.” Dexter rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Yeah, I'm not so great at spotting things like that unless someone actually tells me. Would you mind if I talked about this to Cupid? She always knows better than me about romance.”

“If you really want to,” Hrafn allowed. “But for now, go and enjoy your date – and don't worry that I'm doing nothing in our room. I'm going to hang out with a bunch of the nominal villains for the day.”

“Nominal villains?” Dexter repeated, confused.

“Did you know there's a witch who has a pond of magical water that turns whatever touches it into gold?” Hrafn asked. “Or that her three sons attend here?”

“No, I didn't,” Dexter admitted, stunned.

“Apparently they recently had to start melting down the statues of people who touched their magical pond,” Hrafn revealed. “They were running out of lawn.”

“Gah!” Dexter yelped. “And you're going to hang out with them?”

“Nominal villains,” Hrafn reiterated. “From your perspective, that's horrible. From theirs, the people who touch the pond shouldn't have been trespassing and should have paid attention to the signs they have up saying not to touch it. Just because they're a villain doesn't always make them evil. Evil pretty much guarantees villain, but not always the other way around. Trust me on this, my mother is an actual, out-and-out evil villain. I know the difference.”

“You know, you nearly never talk about your mother, except that you're taking the villainy and magic-focused classes because of her,” Dexter remarked.

“The last time I was able to talk to her, she was suggesting world domination as a good mother-son bonding activity,” Hrafn said dryly. “Sometimes I wonder if Dad qualified as a hero just because he was the only person who could, occasionally, talk her down. I mean, he could do all that hero stuff as well as any Prince Charming you care to name, but I'm pretty sure handling my mother was what actually got him awarded full-hero status.”

Dexter winced in sympathy.

“So... who else are you going to be hanging out with today?” Dexter asked. “Or was it just those guys?”

“Sea witch who gives the little mermaid legs but takes her voice,” Hrafn said, “she had a son and a daughter, they'll be part of the group today. Oh, and Ramona Badwolf.”

“Ramona Badwolf?!” Dexter yelped. “How is she a _nominal_ villain?”

“Okay, so she may not be any more than I am,” Hrafn allowed with a shrug. “But she's cool to hang out with.”

“Doesn't Cerise mind that you're making friends with her fairy tale foe?” Dexter tried.

“Actually, she's glad that we can hang out together in Advanced Villainy, keep an eye on each other,” Hrafn answered. “Besides, destinies aren't anything we have to really worry about any more, remember? Since all the pages from the Storybook of Legends were released? The Hood-Badwolf dynamic can get interesting sometimes, but...” he trailed off, not willing to say that they cared about each other. Not even to Dexter. Hrafn wasn't going to be the one to blow Cerise's family secret. Sure, it compassed Ramona as well as their parents, but Cerise was the one who had told him in the first place, so in Hrafn's mind it was Cerise's family secret.

“Okay,” Dexter decided after a moment.

“When is your date with Cupid?” Hrafn checked.

“It's in half an hour,” Dexter answered, checking the clock. “I should go now if I want to get her some flowers before I pick her up.”

“Gardenias for joy and sweet love,” Hrafn suggested as he waved off his room mate with a smile.

“Thanks!”

~oOo~

Hrafn was spending his Sunday hanging out with Cerise, Darling, and Tiny. Well, he may also have been avoiding that new girl that Apple was hanging out with, Mira. Nothing personally against the girl, but there was something about her that made Hrafn uncomfortable. It probably had something to do with the way Apple seemed to be constantly nervous around Mira, but still didn't leave the red-head's side for other company.

“There you are, Hrafn!” Maddie chirped in greeting. “I've been looking all over for you!”

“Hey Maddie,” Hrafn answered her, waving from where he was sitting on Tiny's knee. “What's up?”

“What's up is that the narrators said something that reminded me of something that the young narrator said back when we were in Wonderland,” Maddie said. “I had meant to ask you about it, but things were happening kind of fast at the time.”

“Narrators?” Cerise asked.

“It's best not to ask,” Darling advised, though her smile was amused rather than derisive.

“I'll explain later,” Hrafn promised.

“What did they say?” Tiny asked.

“When we were in Wonderland and Hrafn signed the Storybook of Legends in order to get his full powers in order to defeat Courtly Jester, the young narrator said that you were inheriting the evil powers of your mother,” Maddie said, addressing Hrafn directly.

“Did she breathe at all during that?” Cerise asked Hrafn softly.

“Once,” Hrafn confirmed. “Yes Maddie, my mother was, is, and probably always will be evil, and I inherited my magic from her. What about it?”

“The narrators are being very quiet in general and very vague when they're not – since they know I can hear them, and apparently directly interfering with the story is against the rules for narrators,” Maddie warned in preface. “But they said that soon the school would find out just who your mother was, erm, whether you told us or not.”

“Oh,” Hrafn said softly, expression bleak.

“That really doesn't sound good,” Cerise said. “Um, Hrafn? Does anybody at the school know who your mother is?” she asked. Leaving out herself, since she didn't feel like explaining how she had found out. “Anybody who'd tell?”

“Briar found out the year we broke the babble spell on Giles Grimm, but she promised not to tell and she hasn't,” Hrafn said, and reached up to massage his forehead. “Okay. If the whole school is going to find out soon, then I want to be the one to tell my friends, and I'd like to just do it the once.”

“That sounds like a good plan,” Darling agreed. “Should we get everybody and meet somewhere?”

“Do you want any of the teachers to know?” Tiny asked.

“Cerise, could you get Professor Badwolf and Ramona to come? And grab Sparrow, Hunter, Ashlynn, and Cedar as well, if you see them,” Hrafn requested. “Maddie, please round up Lizzy, Kitty, Bunny, Alistair and your father. Darling, your brothers, Rosabella, and Cupid. Tiny? Could you please find Blondie, Hopper, and Briar?”

“You want Blondie there?” Cerise asked, surprised.

“Blondie can keep a secret,” Hrafn said. “It might be a big scoop, but she'll sit on it until the time is right, if I ask her to. I'm sorry to say it, but Cedar's actually the one I'm worried about. If anybody asks her, she can't lie about it. She even has trouble just dissembling sometimes.”

Cerise, who had her own familial secret and who was Cedar's room mate, grimaced in pained agreement.

“And I'll get Holly, Poppy, Ginger, Melody, Duchess, and Nevermore,” Hrafn decided. “Meet in Wonderland Grove in half an hour?”

“What about Apple? Or Faybelle?” Darling asked gently.

Hrafn shook his head.

“No,” he denied. “Faybelle because I'm pretty sure that she genuinely won't care when she finds out, and Apple... well, apart from that she's kind of sticking with Mira, who I don't know well enough to want to share this with, I think it would change how she sees me too much. Besides, for all that we kind of get along, we're not actually really friends.”

“Fair enough,” Cerise said. “Wonderland Grove in half an hour.”


	17. Chapter 17

“What's this all about?” Professor Badwolf demanded.

“It seems that the children have invited us to a meeting,” Mr Hatter said with a smile, “and no meeting can start until tea has been had.”

“Yay! Tea time!” Maddie cheered.

“Tea and scones and chairs for seating,” Hrafn intoned with a wave of his hand that produced purple fire, which condensed into the same long table he had conjured many times for Wonderland Tea Parties back in his first year at Ever After High, when he was Student Council President. “Let us now begin this meeting.”

“I really do love that spell,” Lizzy declared as she took a seat. “Though I must say, this isn't the mad tea party set up that you usually conjure.”

All of the crockery was plain white, undecorated and simple in style. There were scones on platters rather than tiered trays, and up near the Badwolfs, a large bowl of bacon-and-potato salad, heavy on the bacon. Nevermore had a large trough of dragon chow next to Hrafn's chair, where she was in reach in case he felt the need to pet her for comfort at any time during this conversation, and there was even a teacup big enough for Tiny's use, with appropriately sized biscuits sitting on the edge of the saucer.

“I'd hate for people to break the good china by accident,” Hrafn said with a weak smile. “Or on purpose.”

“Hrafn?” Briar asked, worried.

“While you all drink tea and munch scones, I'm going to just start talking, okay?” Hrafn said, and took a bracing breath. “Okay. So. I'm going to start my little story back in my first year here. I'd come across Kitty teasing Cerise about something personal. What that was doesn't matter right now, but to cheer Cerise up, I offered a listening ear, and something she could think of to remind herself that whatever her personal issues, there was definitely someone who had it worse.”

“What he means, is he gave me blackmail on him, so I could feel safe telling him about my problems,” Cerise clarified. “We've become friends since then though, and friends don't tell each other's secrets,” she said, and reached over to give his hand a comforting squeeze.

“Meow, and Hrafn gave me a bag of catnip in exchange for my promise to never talk about it again,” Kitty recalled with a smile and a purr.

“Moving on,” Hrafn said firmly, though he was loathe to let go of Cerise's hand. “Thronecoming. I think we all remember finding out that the Storybook of Legends was a fake. Well, what not quite everybody knew, was that a bunch of us talked to Giles Grimm, followed his riddlish clue, and dived into the Storybook of Legends in Heritage Hall. Once we were inside the book, there were more books. We had to enter the stories and retrieve a page in order to get out. We had no way of knowing whose story was whose, and, well... Briar stepped into the story that was one side of my legacy.”

Briar wrapped her arms around herself and shivered as she recalled just what that had been like. Beside her, Hopper wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulders. She hadn't told him what had happened, and he respected her keeping someone else's secret, but he wasn't going to let his girlfriend just suffer when he could be there for her.

“And most recently, on our trip to Wonderland, I signed my page in the Storybook of Legends in order to unlock my full powers so that I could fight Courtly Jester. Only it wasn't just that,” Hrafn said. “How did your narrator friend put it, Maddie?”

“You inherited the evil powers of your mother,” Maddie repeated.

“Yes. That,” Hrafn sighed. “I think everybody here knows that I broke the Wonderland Curse. I think, after everything, most people just decided I had figured out how, and over-powered it. That is true, but there's more to it. Darling, do you by any chance recall your little theory, back from when we were all in the study hall, before we were swept away to Wonderland?” Hrafn asked. “Just after Faybelle's attempt failed, turning her into a sheep?”

“I posited that the reason Faybelle had been unable to break the curse when she tried was that...” Darling frowned in thought and tapped her chin. “That the Evil Queen's curse must have it's own protective magic,” she recalled. “So that only one of the Queen's family will have the power to reverse it.”

For several people, the clues that Hrafn had been obliquely lining up fell into place, especially when Hrafn nodded.

“That's right,” he said, and laid it out for those among his friends who weren't quite as quick on the uptake. “I inherited my magic from my mother: the Evil Queen.”

“Why tell us now?” Ginger asked, the first to get over the shock of Hrafn's identity.

“Because of something Maddie heard from her narrator friends,” Hrafn said. “Apparently, whether I come out and tell people or not, soon the whole school will know. I wanted to be the one to tell all of you. Blondie, can I ask you to sit on this bomb-spell of a story for a while? When it comes out, it comes out, but I wanted my friends, and the teacher I trusted most, to know first.”

“Can I get a promise of an hexclusive interview with you, once it's public knowledge?” Blondie bargained hopefully.

“Sure,” Hrafn agreed.

“I must say, I am delighted to be counted among your friends, Hrafn,” Mr Hatter said with a smile, and raised his teacup in a respectful and surprisingly serious toast. “And to have your trust in this matter. You may count on my discretion.”

“Thank you, Sir,” Hrafn said gratefully, and turned to Lizzy. “Lizzy?” he checked.

“Hrafn. You broke the Wonderland Curse. You brought down the barrier between the worlds. You got me home in time for my mother's birthday party. You have more than made up for what your mother did,” Lizzy insisted.

“I guess it does kinda hexplain why the Red Rook on that un-chess board called you 'Hrafn Queen' and said you were a future queen,” Kitty said thoughtfully.

“I have no idea how that name got onto any paperwork in Wonderland,” Hrafn denied. “My dad's name is the only parental name I have on any of my paperwork here.”

“Oh, Wonderland has many mysteries,” Mr Hatter said with a bright, toothy smile. “I don't think I've ever met anybody who has ever learned them all.”

“Whatever after. I never want to be called Hrafn Queen again, and certainly not Mr Queen,” Hrafn said with a shudder. “King, I'll take. Dad's the Good King. No, I'm probably not getting his destiny either. Good Kings haven't ever been able to use magic like I can. It's why I never said outright who my father was either. But hex, I might as well let both of my parents' identities out of the bag, if I'm letting one.”

Maddie giggled. A few of the other girls did too, but Maddie was the loudest giggler in the group.

“You've been my room mate for a couple of years now, Hrafn,” Dexter pointed out, surprisingly calm. “You've told me and told me and told me that your mother is why you take the magic classes, and that your mother is why you take the villain classes. I'm not surprised your mother was a villain. I just hadn't hexpected her to be, well, The Evil Queen. Nothing has changed, but it's a bit surprising. Your dad makes sense too though, from what you've told me about him.”

“Well said, little bro,” Daring agreed. Around the table, all of Hrafn's peers were nodding agreement.

“But you're telling us now because the whole school is going to find out soon, no matter what you do or don't do,” Professor Badwolf spoke up, drawing the attention of every student present.

“Yes Sir,” Hrafn confirmed. “About my mother, at least.”

“Miss Hatter. Can you provide any other details on this?” Professor Badwolf questioned sternly.

“No Professor,” Maddie answered. “The narrators were being very vague. They know I can hear them, you see, and apparently they have rules about spoilers and interfering with the story too much.”

Professor Badwolf huffed and grunted, arms crossed over his chest.

“Very well,” he said at last. “Then I suppose we'll all just have to wait and see, but know that I'll be hexpecting even better grades from you in Advanced Villainy, Mr Hrafn. I'll be letting Professor Knight know to be harder on you in Hero Training as well. I won't tell him why, just that he should be.”

“Yes Sir,” Hrafn agreed, then sighed, and finally sat down and picked up his own teacup. “Okay, any other questions?”

“Can we try a new dragon polish on Nevermore?” Holly asked, gesturing between herself and her twin. As though the news of Hrafn's parentage didn't matter. As though it was normal. It was a very welcome non-reaction. “We're trying to come up with our own, better recipe.”

Nevermore chirruped in curiosity at hearing her name.

“Nevermore is almost always happy to be pampered,” Hrafn said with a smile, glad that the revelation of his parentage hadn't changed how his friends saw him and treated him. “Sure. When?”

“Great!” Poppy cheered. “Tomorrow after classes. Um, we don't have any after-lunch classes, so...”

Hrafn, on the other hand, did have classes after lunch.

“I could bring her,” Daring offered. “I need to check on Legend, anyway.”

“Thanks, Daring,” Hrafn said. He really could be a good friend, when he wasn't completely focused on his own reflection.

“We'll let you know where we set up the grooming station tomorrow morning,” said Poppy.

~oOo~

Dexter and Cupid pulled Hrafn aside after the meeting-turned-social-gathering had ended, which really just meant that all the food was eaten and everybody had decided to go their separate ways and do other things.

“Hrafn,” Cupid said solemnly. “Dexter brought it to my attention that your life has been somewhat lacking in the romance department lately.”

“He brought it to my attention too,” Hrafn agreed.

“Well,” Cupid said with a frown. “That's, I mean. I thought you had that figured out. If you don't... If she doesn't... Well!”

“You're not going to jab me with one of your arrows, are you?” Hrafn checked nervously. “That was hilarious to watch when Hunter shot so many, but I don't think I want to be on the receiving end.”

“I just might, if I see the two of you alone and not even holding hands,” Cupid warned.

“Or you could tell me, I'll take some time to think about it, and then approach whoever you thought I was already with, in my own time and my own way?” Hfran suggested hopefully. This was Cupid. She knew her business. He just really hoped that she was going to say the name of the girl he was thinking of, and not one that he hadn't noticed falling for him.

“Hrafn is good at the romantic stuff,” Dexter reminded his girlfriend with a smile.

“Fine,” Cupid conceded.

~oOo~

The new girl, Mira, was in Hrafn's Grimmnastics class the next morning.

“Candy cane pole vault!” Coach Gingerbreadman said with a grin as he stood before them all, leaning on a candy cane that was at least as tall as he was. “This old Gingerbreadman is about to show you how to take the cake!” he said, and, smiling widely, lifted the candy cane over his head, jogged a few steps towards the line he'd be vaulting. He planted one end of the candy cane on the floor, and started using it as leverage to jump the bar.

A sharp elbow nudged his ribs, and Hrafn looked over at the person standing next to him. It was Mira, and she was smirking. He saw her gesture, and send a streamer of magenta magic towards Coach Gingerbreadman's candy cane.

Everybody else saw the results.

The candy cane quadrupled in length, bent (but didn't break) and Coach Gingerbreadman was deposited in the net of the basketball hoop.

Mira snickered, and Hrafn would privately admit that it was a funny sight. All the same, he held off laughing until it was more than just Mira. Apple, on Mira's other side, looked horrified. Well, she never could understand the humour in practical jokes. Besides, Coach wasn't hurt. Just stuck, and that was easily fixed.

“Mr Hrafn, was that you?” Coach Gingerbreadman demanded.

Hrafn was, after all, the known magic user in the class.

“No Sir!” Hrafn said at once. “Let me get you down, sir?” he offered.

Even awkwardly stuck as he was, Coach Gingerbreadman managed to nod in agreement.

“Thank you,” he huffed, once he was back on the ground.

~oOo~

Hrafn let himself be dragged over to sit with Apple and Mira at lunch, and kept an eye out for any of his actual friends, only listening with half an ear as Mira alternately talked about all the things she'd heard about _him_ , and all the things she'd done that she thought sounded cool.

He spotted Cerise and Darling at about the same time as they spotted him, and with a tilt of his head, invited them to sit with him. He waved greeting when they got near.

Mira didn't much like that though, it seemed.

As Cerise and Darling reached the table, Mira slammed her hand down on the bench beside her and turned.

“We were saving these seats,” Mira said. “Sorry,” she added, utterly unapologetic.

“News to me,” Hrafn said as he stood up and grabbed the sides of his lunch tray. “I think I see room over where Kitty and Duchess are sitting,” he suggested.

He'd barely climbed over and out from the bench when Holly and Poppy arrived, and they looked a mess. They were both wearing oven mitts and had pillows belted to their chests and backs, and Poppy was wearing a colander like a helmet. Holly had an upturned flowerpot on her head. Both of them were covered in soot smuts.

“Um, Hrafn, don't freak out,” Poppy entreated.

That was never a promising beginning to a conversation, and Hrafn remembered that they'd asked to try a new scale polish on Nevermore, so he was even more worried.

“So, we were trying out a new scale polish on Nevermore and, well... she took off,” Poppy said.

“We set up our grooming station in the old dragon stables behind the school,” Holly added quickly. “That was the last place we saw her. We thought, maybe if you call her...”

“Maybe she's just hiding somewhere,” Poppy said hopefully, if slightly unconvincingly, “and would come out! We're sorry,” she added, earnestly and honestly apologetic.

“Thanks for getting me,” Hrafn said, dismissing the apology with a shake of his head. If Nevermore decided to bail on the O'Hair twins, then there wasn't a lot either one of them could do to stop her. Hrafn could, but he had magic to help if and when Nevermore got out of hand. “Darling, if I'm not back in time, will you let Madame Yaga know that I've gone looking for Nevermore, and might be late, or possibly even absent, from class this afternoon?” Hrafn requested.

Darling was the only student in the immediate vicinity who was also taking Dance Class-ic.

“Hext me when you find her,” Darling insisted.

“Sure,” Hrafn agreed.

~oOo~

“Nevermore!” Hrafn called, his voice echoing, naturally rather than with magic, off the cliffs as they descended from the school to the old dragon stables. “Nevermore!” he called again when they reached the dilapidated, crumbling old structure at the bottom of the cliff. “Nevermore! Where are you?!”

“Wow,” Apple breathed as they stepped out onto the grass of the abandoned ruin. “The old Dragon Games Arena.”

“Dragon Games sound wicked!” Mira decided, raising her arms into the air to express just how cool she thought they were. “Have you ever played, Hrafn? I mean, you have a dragon.”

“I haven't,” Hrafn answered, “and for more reasons than that Daring and I are the only ones who have dragons, and Dragon Games were a team sport.”

“Liiiiike?” Mira probed.

“Personal reasons,” Hrafn said, shutting the girl down.

“You're mother?” Cerise questioned softly.

“She did it, yeah,” Hrafn confirmed, “and I don't want to be like her.”

“You wouldn't be, even if you did get into Dragon Games,” Cerise asserted with a comforting smile and a hand on his shoulder.

“Thanks,” Hrafn said, and lay a grateful hand over Cerise's as he smiled back at her.

“Why did Headmaster Grimm close the Dragon Centre down?” Apple asked.

“You mean, you don't know?” Holly asked, surprised, and pulled out her mirror-pad. “Dragon Games can be very dangerous,” she said, as she pulled up some old footage. “They say that Snow White and the Evil Queen were the greatest Dragon Game captains ever after.”

“They were wicked competitive,” Poppy agreed over her sister's shoulder, “with their destinies and all,” she added.

Apple's expression was one of stunned surprise, as though she had no idea what to do with even the concept of her mother on dragon-back.

“Did you know Legend is the last dragon from that original brood?” Holly said with a smile.

As though able to hear them, Legend's roar echoed out of the old dragon stable, catching all of them by surprise.

“That's a dragon cry,” Mira said, and pointed to the stable, just in case any of them had missed it.

“But not Nevermore's,” Hrafn said, even as he sprinted towards the stable. “That was Legend. Sounds like she's hurt.”

The girls all followed behind him at a sprint. Which was very considerate of Cerise, really, to not overtake him. Then again, that could have been a practical consideration. Dragons in pain tended to breathe fire, and Hrafn was the one who could magic up a shield to keep them from being burned. In which case, it was still very considerate of Cerise to not overtake him. Hrafn would have hated to see Cerise get burned.

As it happened, Nevermore was in the dragon stables. She poked her head out of a bale of hay as Hrafn stepped through the door.

“Nevermore!” Hrafn greeted, relieved. “You were in here this whole time? Holly and Poppy thought you'd run away on them.”

Nevermore just nuzzled at Hrafn, unrepentant for having worried him.

Hrafn petted her with one hand while he pulled out his mirror-phone with the other and shot off a hext to Darling.

Then Legend gave off another pained wail, and Hrafn was reminded why he'd entered the stable at a run.

“Something is wrong with Legend,” Daring said as he stroked the dragon's horns worriedly.

“Body temperature seems really high,” Holly noted as she checked the properly adult dragon over.

“Does that mean he's really sick?” Daring asked, genuinely fearful for the sake of his dragon.

“She, Daring,” Hrafn corrected as he gave Nevermore one last pat before he moved over to where Holly and Poppy were checking over Legend. “Legend is a she. I thought you knew this!”

“Um...” Daring hesitated. Okay, so he did care about Legend, and he was a good Hero, but that didn't completely cancel out that he was occasionally a bit of an idiot about some things.

“And she's not sick,” Hrafn realised, surprised by what he was seeing. “Legend has been hanging out with some other dragons recently?” he checked with Daring. “Besides Nevermore, I mean.”

“Well, yes. How did you know that?” Daring asked, surprised.

“I think it's time!” Holly sang happily as she caught on.

“Aww...” Apple cooed.

The other girls, Cerise included, giggled.

“Time? What time?” Daring asked, calmed now from his worry for Legend as he'd been reassured he, er, _she_ wasn't sick, and just confused.

“Ahem,” Mira said as she stood beside him, crossed her arms in front of her, and rocked them from side to side. The motion of a person cradling a baby.

“Oh, that time!” Daring said, and fainted.

Hrafn shook his head at Daring's prone form, and sent Darling another hext. With a clutch of eggs to deliver, it was entirely possible that he wasn't going to get back to school before Dance Class-ic was over. Even if there was still another half-hour of the lunch period.

~oOo~

Legend lay twelve eggs, and then curled up for a well-earned rest, while they set about building a nest for the eggs to keep warm in.

“Dragonpedia says: in the wild, mothers will usually lay their eggs near active volcanoes to warm them until they hatch,” Holly read off her mirror-pad. “Apparently, it takes years.”

“Dragon babies must be soooo cute,” Poppy cooed. “What was Nevermore like, Hrafn? You pretty much hid her in your dorm room until she was almost this size,” she asked, and gestured to where Nevermore was curled up in the stall next to Legend, currently shifted to her juvenile size, which was roughly equivalent with a large dog.

“All paws and tail, just like a kitten or a puppy, but twice as clever and able to breathe fire,” Hrafn said with a fond smile for his dragon companion.

“Aw,” Apple said, staring longingly at the eggs. “Years until they hatch? I can't wait that long!”

“Well, we should light a fire around them for now anyway,” Hrafn said.  
“With magic?” Holly guessed. “You could speed up their incubation time, right?”

Hrafn pulled a face.

“Bad idea?” Cerise guessed.

“Dragons are magic-sensitive when they're young,” Hrafn said. “Look at Legend. She was born and went through her formative years without any magic performed on her or too close too her.”

“Okay?” Apple said.

“Now look at Nevermore,” Hrafn said, voice dust-dry. “The day she was hatched, I made her a dragon bed and toys with magic. I cast spells around her so that she couldn't make a mess of the dorm room I share with Dexter. She was still very young when that incident with the Well of Wonder happened, and that did a serious number on her.”

“And that's why she's got the jewel on her forehead and can change her size,” Cerise surmised.

“Right,” Hrafn confirmed.

“So... what would happen if you used magic to incubate the eggs?” Poppy asked.

“At a guess?” Hrafn said, because he really didn't know. “The magic might have an effect on how they breathe fire, or they could have twisted horns, or hex, they might even pop out covered in jewels like Nevermore shows when she shifts into her largest size – and which Legend does not have,” he reminded the girls pointedly.

Sure, it looked cool, but how dragons looked naturally, and how they looked when they'd been affected by magic... well, the jewels and such weren't natural. With how much Nevermore liked being scratched around the jewel on her forehead, Hrafn thought her scales right there probably itched a lot.

“Okay, so, for now, we build a completely natural fire around them to keep them warm, and talk to Professor Papa Bear or Madame Yaga about the possibility of magical incubation,” Cerise said as she looked away from the nest of eggs to search the stable for something that could be used to make a safely contained but very hot fire. “And wake up Daring,” she added dryly with a smile when she spotted the boy still passed out from when he'd fainted earlier.

“And if we can do it really quickly,” Hrafn said, checking the time, “then we just might make it back up to school in time for class, those of us who actually have afternoon classes,” he added, with a side-eye at Holly, Poppy and Cerise, who all didn't.

“Oh my gosh! Class!” Apple yelped, and turned wide eyes on Mira. “We've got Science and Sorcery with Professor Rumplestiltskin! We'll get detention if we're late!”


	18. Chapter 18

Dance Class-ic, at least, had heard from Darling about Legend having laid a clutch of eggs. Hrafn was just a little bit late, so Darling had needed to explain his tardiness to Madame Yaga. Some of the girls were just as eager to see cute baby dragons as Poppy and Apple had been, and as soon as class was over – there was no idle chit-chat in Madame Yaga's classes – Hrafn was swarmed by them. Not quite every girl in the class, but nearly all of them.

He led them all over to Madame Yaga to ask her opinion on magical incubation of dragon eggs.

“It's been done before,” Madame Yaga assured him. “Your concerns are actually all perfectly valid, but the changes caused in those dragons by magic didn't cause any problems for them, neither as they grew nor when they were grown. It's perfectly safe.”

“Right,” Hrafn said, and took a deep breath. “I guess I'll go down now and do that then. Anybody here want to come?”

Blondie, Melody, Darling, Ashlynn, Maddie and Lizzy were all quick to grab onto him. Hrafn shook his head, amused at them all, but obligingly transported them all down to the old dragon stable.

“Hrafn!” Holly, Poppy, Daring and Cerise all greeted happily. They'd all been keeping an eye on the small bonfire they'd turned the nest into, for sensible safety reasons. Daring was even holding the fire extinguisher at the ready.

“Madame Yaga okayed magical incubation,” Hrafn revealed.

“Yes!” Poppy cheered.

“Ooh! Someone hold my mirror-pad,” Blondie entreated as she pulled out the device and quickly flicked through her programmes so that she just needed someone to hold it up and press the button on the screen to start. “This should be mirror-cast as it happens!”

“I gotcha,” Melody said as she took the mirror-pad. “And rolling!”

“Breaking news, live from the Ever After High dragon stables!” Blondie said, a bright smile on her face. “Daring Charming's trusty dragon, Legend, just earlier today lay a clutch of eggs, and after getting advice from Madame Yaga, Hrafn is about to perform a spell to accelerate their incubation period.”

“Incubation incantation, warm with lava imitation, time to hatch acceleration!” Hrafn incanted, and purple flames burst into life throughout and in between the natural orange flames of the previously built bonfire.

“Woah!” everybody gasped, and stepped back. A natural and sensible response to there suddenly being even more fire.

Daring brandished the fire extinguisher.

“It's alright Daring,” Hrafn reassured the other boy and preventing him from actually using the fire extinguisher. “The spell flames will hextinguish themselves and the natural flames just as soon as the eggs are ready to hatch.”

Daring lowered the extinguisher, but didn't relinquish it. A flying spark in a dusty old stable would be a very bad thing, after all.

“There appear to be patterns emerging on the shells of the dragon eggs,” Blondie observed.

“Dragons are very magic-sensitive when they're young,” Hrafn said over his shoulder, keeping an eye on the magical fire, just in case it did get out of control despite his confidence in his spellwork. “That includes their eggs.”

Blondie moved over to Daring.

“So Daring, how do you feel about Legend becoming a mother?” Blondie asked, and presented him with her microphone.

“Shocked, mostly,” Daring admitted, though he was smiling as he said it.

“He fainted,” Cerise confided in a whisper to Darling, who giggled at this information.

All attention snapped back to the eggs when suddenly the fires – both magical and natural – went out.

“I want the cutest one!” Poppy said, bouncing on the spot.

“Oh, this is magical,” Holly said, oven-mitt-covered hand resting over her heart on her pillow-covered chest.

Eggs cracked, and little heads with big eyes peeked out, then toppled broken shell out of the way.

“Oh my fairy godmother!” Poppy said as she stepped up in her makeshift armour to pick up one of the chirping baby dragons. “This is hexciting!”

“So cute!” Lizzy exclaimed.

“This one's mine!” Holly claimed as she picked up another baby dragon.

A mostly-white dragon bounded over to Daring, who was enchanted enough by those big brown eyes that he bent down to it. The little one gave him a lick.

Most of the baby dragons were brightly coloured. Turquoise, pink, purple, white... but some of them were darker.

“Um, Hrafn?” Cerise asked cautiously as she pointed to them.

Blondie had caught on too.

“Hrafn, can you tell us why some of the baby dragons are, um, dark?” she asked, as delicately as she could.

“They're boys,” Hrafn said simply, and shot Blondie a slightly cocky, crooked smile. “Don't listen to a word anybody says about them being evil dragons just because their scales are darker. It's a male-female differentiation. Dragons with darker scales have a bad reputation because male dragons are more aggressive than female dragons,” he explained. “Females are considered more playful. Not that being playful instead of aggressive really makes them any easier to handle, when 'aggressive' means they're breathing fire all around to impress or intimidate you, and 'playful' means breathing fire right in your face because they like you.”

“Good to know,” Blondie said, eyes wide.

“We are definitely going to need better armour,” Poppy said, still wearing a colander on her head as she cradled to her chest the baby dragon she'd picked up.

More students poured in, having caught the live broadcast and hurried down to see the baby dragons for themselves. Apple and Mira among them. When Cedar arrived, Melody passed Blondie's mirror-pad over, and went to play with the baby dragons herself. Cedar thought the baby dragons were cute, absolutely, but she wasn't sure about getting her wooden self too close to anything that could breathe fire.

“This is Blondie Lockes, reporting to you live from the dragon stables at Ever After High, where dragons once again roam the hallowed halls,” Blondie said, keeping late-comers to the live mirror-cast apprised of exactly when, where, and what was going on. “It would seem that the students of Ever After are eager to adopt these pesky pets,” she said, walking around the stable and directing where Cedar should point the view-finder as she went – at Holly getting kind-of bitten through her mitten by a baby dragon that wanted the carrot she was holding. At Darling who was offering a teddy bear to another, only for bear, hand, and most of her forearm to be encased in a block of ice by a puff from the blue baby dragon.

“Let's get you out of that before you get frostbite,” Hrafn said, and magicked the ice away.

“Thank you,” Darling said, and went right back to trying to offer the bear to the same baby dragon.

“Though, the trend seems to be that the dragon chooses you,” Blondie observed.

One little turquoise-green and purple dragon swooped into Maddie's arms, and puffed something pink at her.

“Cotton candy! Ooh, yum-di-dum!” Maddie said happily.

Definitely a magical kind of puff from that baby dragon. It had changed the colour and style of Maddie's hair, as well as covered her face with cotton candy. As much as Hrafn hadn't like the idea of magically accelerated incubation having an effect on the dragons' ability to breathe fire, in that case, it was very fortunate. If Maddie had gotten a face full of dragon fire at that close range, she would definitely not be smiling right now.

Legend, awake once more, lay contentedly in her stall and blew the occasional smoke ring for her babies to try jumping, hopping, or even clumsily flying through, which counted as adorably maternal for any dragon.

Daring, Dexter, and Hopper all got bowled right through a door when a couple of the baby dragons decided to breathe fire at them.

“You guys alright?” Hrafn asked as he hurried over to help them all up. “You have to remember that playful dragons are just as dangerous as aggressive ones.”

“Got it,” Dexter agreed.

A large shadow passed over them, and there was a rushing like large leathery wings.

“That looked like Nevermore,” Hopper said.

Hrafn's head snapped up, searching the sky for his dragon.

“Hey Hrafn!” Mira called down. “You have to try this! Nevermore is a natural!”

She had strapped saddle and bridle to Nevermore, and was riding her. Doing laps above the stable even, and from what Hrafn could see and hear, occasionally pulling a bit too hard on the reigns.

“Who will be the next champions of dragon sport?” Blondie asked, as she and Cedar appeared outside, getting footage of Mira riding around on Nevermore. “Only time will tell!”

~oOo~

“I can't believe they rearranged class schedules for everybody who got a baby dragon,” Dexter said as he flopped backwards onto his bed in their shared dorm room. “When you got Nevermore, you just had to cut down on the classes you were taking.”

“It wasn't the summer term,” Hrafn pointed out reasonably as he followed his room mate in, carrying a tiny Nevermore in his arms. “And I was taking thirteen different classes.”

“Yeah, that was nuts too,” Dexter said. “Still, giving students with baby dragons an hour at the beginning of every day and an extra hour before lunch just to spend with their dragons? And that as well as however many of them don't have afternoon classes every day.”

“Having the charge of a dragon is considered towards a whole bunch of good grades for Beast Training and Care,” Hrafn explained. He knelt down by Nevermore's dragon bed, and scratched around her horns as she tenderised her pillow. “A lot of the students who got dragons today haven't ever taken Beast Training and Care. They need the consideration.”

“And you don't?” Dexter asked, slightly incredulous, sitting up to stare at his friend. He lived with Hrafn and Nevermore, after all, so he knew how much time and care a dragon took even when they weren't a baby any more.

“I've always been able to use magic to cheat when I needed more hands than I've actually got,” Hrafn pointed out with a chuckle, “and I had an awesome room mate who would occasionally feed Nevermore so that I got to sleep in now and then.”

“I guess that's true,” Dexter conceded with a smile.

“It is absolutely true,” Hrafn asserted. “I even said as much to Headmaster Grimm when he was arranging those changes, which is why he changed some of the dorm room assignments.”

“He did?” Dexter yelped, surprised.

“Maddie and Ashlynn kind of both bonded with the same dragon, so they're sharing a room now, so they can take care of it together,” Hrafn explained, not that everybody who had adopted a dragon was keeping them in their rooms. Even those that wanted to, weren't all the time. “And Holly and Poppy have been separated, so that there aren't two baby dragons in the same dorm room. I know Holly is in with Lizzy, though I don't know who Poppy's new room mate is. Briar and Apple have been separated too. There will probably be even more shuffling as the last few dragons get picked. There are a couple of awkward situations though, because Headmaster Grimm can't put a guy and a girl in the same dorm room just because they both got picked by the same dragon.”

“Huh,” Dexter said thoughtfully.

“... Are you upset that you didn't get a dragon?” Hrafn asked.

“Not really,” Dexter said, shaking his head. “I mean, a little bit, I guess. I think it would be pretty cool to be able to compete in dragon sports, but I like having you for a room mate, and Daring and Darling are the athletic ones, not me. I've never really been any good at that stuff.”  
“And Daring has Legend, and now Darling has a baby dragon that we know from hexperience will grow pretty fast,” Hrafn said knowingly, and gestured to where Nevermore had already fallen asleep. “Leaving just you.”

Dexter looked down, lay back on his bed, and rolled over so that his back was to Hrafn.

Hrafn groaned in frustration with himself at how he'd phrased that. Yeah. Not helpful.

“So what are you going to do about it?” Hrafn asked. “Because I know that Daring has nothing on you in the academics, and I know that some day you're going to be a good king, but I also know your dad does the comparison thing between you and Daring, and I know _you_ do too. So. What are you going to do, so that it doesn't feel like you're being left behind by your stupidly handsome and athletic big brother.”

Dexter chuckled weakly, but shook his head and didn't look up.

“Your brother who genuinely loves every person and even most of the creatures that he lays eyes on, but has recently developed the unfortunate habit of being most interested in looking at himself,” Hrafn added, “because he does have good points aside from how often people randomly spill food and drink on him.”

The chuckle that came this time was stronger, and Dexter rolled over to face at Hrafn. He didn't sit up, but there was eye-contact again.

“So?”

“I think I'll pass on getting a dragon for myself,” Dexter decided. “I've had my hexperience taking care of one already. I think I'll flip the script and learn how to drive a car instead.”

~oOo~

Most of the baby dragons only bonded with one person, so most students didn't get to be excused from classes to play with and care for them. There were a couple of exceptions, Holly and Lizzy, Ashlynn and Maddie, and Briar and Hopper. Briar and Hopper were the only people who had bonded with the same dragon and hadn't been allowed to share a room. Briar had been moved out of the room she shared with Apple though, and put in with Farrah instead. For all that neither Farrah, nor Hopper's room mate Sparrow, had bonded with dragons themselves, they were still permitted to be late for and leave early from classes to help with the dragon that their room mates had bonded with. Briar and Hopper had been two of the only people who had bonded with one of the boy dragons.

Not for lack of effort from other students. Sparrow, for one, was very keen on helping out with the baby dragons – including the boisterous males – and was glad of being room mate to someone who had a dragon, as it meant he got to spend more time at the dragon stables. As yet though, none of the baby dragons had decided they liked him quite enough to bond with him.

Then there was Mira. She also hadn't actually bonded with any of the dragons, but she did use magic to make it look like she had. Or more accurately, make it look like the baby dragons would obey her, and that they wouldn't behave for anybody else. Nevermore refused to go near the red-haired girl, and Hrafn made a point of breaking Mira's enchantments on the baby dragons as soon as he caught her at it.

He'd just drawn breath to yell at her about it, but an announcement over the speakers (yes, even the dragon stables were wired for the school's public announcement system) informed all students that they were to attend an assembly back up at the school. That drawn breath got put to different use than intended.

“Alright people! Pen your dragons and gather 'round. I'll spare us all the walk back up,” Hrafn called out.

Once the baby dragons, and the doors of the stable, were secured, everybody gathered around Hrafn with eager smiles on their faces. Magic was always exciting, and they were all about to get magically transported. Purple fire swirled around them, and the view of the stables was replaced by that of the school's main hall. It wasn't quite the auditorium, but they would have landed on top of other people if Hrafn had tried to take them straight there.

It took a while for the whole school to file into the auditorium and settle down. There was milling about, talking, and the slow, careful, sideways walk as people shuffled down the rows to available seats.

“I heard there's going to be a special guest!”

“Ooh, how hexciting!”

“I wonder who it could be?”

“I wonder if it has anything to do with the dragons?”

“I bet it does.”

“Holly! Poppy! Over here!”

“Room for one more?”

“Sparrow, Hunter, could you help us with something?”

“Hey, there's room for all of us in this row!”

It took a while, and the suddenness of it all probably contributed to how long it was taking – some classes had to pack up experiments, a lot of students had to put thing in their lockers – but eventually everybody had found a seat, sat in it, and the house lights went down, creating a hush over the assembled student body.

The echoing clunk of a spotlight being turned on revealed Headmaster Grimm standing on the stage in front of the red curtains.

“It is my honour to welcome back our most successful graduate; our beloved queen, Snow White!” Headmaster Grimm declared, and bowed out of the spotlight.

The red curtains were pushed aside just enough to let Snow White step through before they closed behind her. The auditorium erupted into cheering and applause, and Snow White's gown just about glowed under the spotlight. Then she did a trick that Hrafn had seen Apple do once before – she stretched out her arms, and birds landed on her. Bluebirds in this case, where Apple had gotten doves, but the question remained of just where had those birds even come from. They were inside, and there weren't any windows in the auditorium.

That question didn't look like it was going to be answered any time soon, and when Snow White moved, most of the birds flew away. Where they went would remain as much an unsolved mystery of where they had come from. Not only that, but Snow White should have been too old by now to still be able to take advantage of the Princess Effect, quite apart from being a queen now, and not a princess at all.

“A little bird told me,” Snow said, and brought up to her ear the remaining bluebird that had perched on her hand, before it too flew off. “That dragons have returned to my beloved alma mater. So it's time we restored the good old ways. Today, the Dragon Games are reinstated at Ever After High,” she declared.

As pretty much everybody in the school had gone down to the dragon stables at some point since Legend's eggs had hatched, even if just to look from a safe distance, that was a very popular announcement. There was a lot of cheering. Snow White wasn't finished yet though, and waited for the cheering to die down before continuing.

“The Dragon Games are tough, yet elegant, and I want my Ever After riders dressed accordingly,” Snow White said, and moved to one side of the stage as the red curtain behind her parted, revealing a large mirror-cast screen. A circular trap door opened in the stage floor, and two familiar figures were elevated out of it. “I have hired the creative team of Lizzy Hearts and Ashlynn Ella to design all new dragon wear.”

The two girls waved as they were applauded and their faces projected onto the large mirror-cast screen so that they could be clearly seen by the whole auditorium. A double row of lights lit up, leading across from where Snow White was standing to where Holly and Poppy had just stepped down off a spiralling staircase and onto a short catwalk. They got their own cheers, and a few people pulled out their devices to take photos.

“These looks are lightweight, flexible, and fashion forward,” Lizzy said.

“They are also fire proof, ice proof, and explosion resistant,” Ashlynn added, an Hunter stepped up from behind her, carrying one of the baby dragons.

A gentle toss saw the baby dragon flap a couple of times to stay aloft. It also breathed a small puff of fire at Holly, who blocked it with her new armour before she held out her arms to catch the baby dragon.

From the other side of the stage, Sparrow repeated Hunter's actions with another baby dragon, and this one puffed ice at Poppy before she also caught it.

“Adorable!” Snow White said happily as she moved back to centre stage, and it was her face being projected larger than life behind her. “Now, I can't very well bring back dragon riding in an old, dilapidated arena,” she said, and there was a cut to a photo of the old Dragon Games arena on the mirror-cast screen behind her. “If you will all follow me outside,” she requested.

~oOo~

It was once again a slow shuffle as hundreds of students got out of their seats, filed out of the auditorium, and then were finally able to actually follow Snow White and the teaching staff through the halls and down, down, that long cliff-side trek to the dragon stables and arena.

Of course, they saw it before they reached it, but Snow White waited until they were all standing on the field before she said anything.

“Allow me to present the new Ever After High Dragon Centre!” she declared as she ascended the steps to the applause of the gathered crowd.

She did the thing where she stretched out her arms and birds landed on her again. At least they were outside this time.

“Hold your applause please,” Snow White requested. “I must admit, this was not my idea. My daughter, Apple, thought that bringing back the Dragon Games would unite everyone with school spirit!”

Apple's smile as she walked up the stairs to where her mother stood, applause at her back, looked a tiny bit strained when she turned to wave. It also looked like the mother and daughter were talking, though they were doing it quietly enough that they couldn't be heard over the general applause. It started to become generally audible as the applause faded away.

“Mira was right. We are different,” Apple said.

“Who?” Snow queried.

“Me,” Mira said boldly as she stepped clear of the student crowd. “And you can't always just buy popularity, Snow,” she said with a sneer.

“Miss Shards!” Headmaster Grimm scolded. “Mind your manners!”

“Mira Shards, oh,” Snow said with a tinkling giggle. “Very clever. Rumour has it you're an excellent dragon rider, for a new kid on the block.”

“The rumour's true,” Mira asserted.

“Only you're not a student,” Snow continued blithely. “You might have been once, back when we were in school. I'd know that arched brow anywhere.”

Apple looked somewhere between awkward and panicked, and everybody else was wondering what was going on.

“I just wanted to be closer to my child,” Mira said. “You can understand that.”

“So you did have a child. Hmm. And to be young again too, maybe?” Snow suggested.

“You'd do it too if you could,” Mira snapped back. “So I suppose now you're going to send me back to that awful mirror prison.”

“It's her,” Hrafn breathed, and reached out to grab hold of the hand of the nearest of his friends. Just like that time at Spring Fairest, Cerise and Briar were right there. Dexter and Darling were at his back as well, and as Hrafn had explained himself to all of his friends, it didn't take much for them to figure out just what was going on.

“The Evil Queen!?”

Mira turned around to face the students, and more to the point, Hrafn.

“Sorry, birdie,” she said with a totally unapologetic smile, and her magenta coloured magic swirled around her. When it cleared, the Evil Queen stood where a merely bratty and callous teenager had been before. “Guilty as charged.”

Gasps and fearful mutters and one “Yay, the Evil Queen is here – said no one ever!” were cut short when -

“Hrafn?” Apple yelped as she figured out the other half of the equation. “You're the son of the Evil Queen?!”

More gasps, mostly shock and surprise. His fellow students knew him well enough by now that the revelation of his parentage didn't change how they viewed him as an individual. Hrafn had been vocally opposed to being forced to follow a destiny dictated to him, ever since he'd arrived at Ever After High.

“So what if I am? I'm more concerned with the fact that the Evil Queen has been loose in our school for the better part of a week,” Hrafn answered sharply, and glared at his mother. “What are you up to?” he demanded.

“You judge me too harshly,” the Evil Queen insisted. “I don't wish harm.”

“I hope you'll understand if I don't believe you,” Hrafn scoffed.

“It's not so hard to change,” the Evil Queen said, and with a gesture, magically picked up Professor Rumplestiltskin and turned him into a frog, though the familiar yellow-toothed under-bite and furred hat were still in evidence. “See? He just changed.”

Hopper caught the frogged professor before he could fall all the way back to the grass.

“Welcome to my world,” he said with a weak smile.

Poppy was standing next to him, still holding onto her baby dragon. When the little dragon decided she wanted to find out what frogged professor tasted like, Poppy only barely held on, and Hopper dropped Professor Rumplestiltkin.

“Snow White, I am reformed,” the Evil Queen insisted, and even bowed, however slight and brief the gesture was. “And now you have dragons. Why what fun we... could have had together. You remember, Snow?”

“We did have an epic rivalry,” Snow White conceded proudly. “You versus me, it hexcited the whole school.”

“Say, I could coach a team,” the Evil Queen offered eagerly, then hesitated. “Oh, but only if I weren't sent back to the mirror. What do you say, Snow White? Or is 'the fairest of them all' afraid of a little competition?”

Hrafn had never taken theatre class. He wasn't particularly inclined to. He was still only not bashing his head against a wall for how blatant and unsubtle the whole contrived 'offer' was because Briar and Cerise were still holding onto him.

“If I recall, the crowds were cheering for me,” Snow White said. “Okay, you're on.”

Whether that shocked people because they couldn't believe Snow White had fallen for the Evil Queen's very obvious ploy, or because Snow White was effectively agreeing to not immediately send the Evil Queen back to the mirror realm, it was hard to tell.

“You won't snow what hit you,” Snow White punned. “I hereby grant the Evil Queen a temporary pardon,” she declared.

“What?!” Hrafn demanded. “Seconds after revealing herself and she just turned a teacher into a frog! And you're going to trust her not to be evil?”

“Okay, I'm changing him back,” the Evil Queen said casually as she mounted the steps to stand with Snow White. A gesture sent a streamer of magenta fire towards where Professor Rumplestiltskin had been dropped.

“Ribbit,” said Professor Rumplestiltskin.

“There,” the Evil Queen said brightly. “You happy?” she cooed back down at Hrafn.

“Ask me again when you've done something good that isn't part of a bargain,” Hrafn answered her, his hands curled into white-knuckled fists at his sides. “Until then? Count me out,” he said, and transported himself out in a wash of purple fire.

“Woah!” Briar and Cerise exclaimed.

“Sorry ladies,” Hrafn apologised. “I just had to get out of there before I did something permanent.”

“Hey, we understand,” Cerise assured him. “We just got taken by surprise, that's all.”

“Yeah,” Briar agreed. “Now, where's my mirror-phone. Blondie's probably covering all that with her mirror-cast, and even if you don't want to be there, we should still find out what hexactly is going on.”

“Here,” Hrafn said, and pulled out his mirror-pad.

“We two queens will be your coaches,” Snow White declared, one hand linked with the Evil Queen's, and holding it aloft. Both of them were smiling, as though they were actually friends, and not deadly rivals. “Tomorrow we will choose our captains and teams. Let us begin a new era of Dragon Games!”

“There you have it, subscrollers,” Blondie said into the camera. “Dragon Games are back!”

“Does anybody here want to get involved?” Cerise asked, obviously interested herself, but not totally committed to the idea. Yet.

“Sounds like a rush,” Briar allowed with a grin, “but with the Evil Queen and Apple's mother choosing captains and teams? I dunno. Nothing against Apple's mother, or yours Hrafn, but they're a bit, er...”

“If you're trying for polite,” Hrafn said with an amused smile, “then I believe 'intense' might be the word you're looking for. What I want to know is which one of them is planning to make the baby dragons magically big enough to ride.”

“Why do you think either of them would do that?” Briar asked, then thought about it. “Oh, no, wait. Sorry. Forget I asked. Wicked competitive, and Dragon Games aren't quite the same if the dragons aren't being actually ridden.”

“Yeah,” Cerise agreed. “And, sorry Hrafn, but I think we can count on your mother for that trick,” she added. “Snow White thinks the same as pretty much everybody else around here: that the baby dragons are adorable. Yeah, dragonsport isn't hexactly the same without dragon riding, but it's still possible. Your mother doesn't strike me as someone who cares about the cute factor.”

“She never has,” Hrafn admitted. “But don't let me and my issues with my mother hold either of you back if you want to participate.”


	19. Chapter 19

“Hrafn!” Ashlynn called, stopping him in the hallway. Right next to a giant sign-up sheet that had been pinned to one of the school notice boards. “Are you going to join the team tomorrow?” she asked hopefully.

Hrafn appreciated that none of his friends had treated him any differently after he'd told them about his mother, and that all of them still weren't treating him any differently now that it was public knowledge. He really did. But he'd rather face Blondie's interview than sign up to participate in the Dragon Games while his mother was a team coach.

“I don't think so,” is what Hrafn actually said, shaking his head.

“Why not?” Melody asked, having also just put her name on the sign-up sheet. “I mean, you're the one with the most dragon handling hexperience of anybody in the school,” she pointed out.

“I'm flattered,” Hrafn said, “but whatever my mother is up to – and she's definitely up to something – I want no part of it.”

“I guess that's fair,” Ashlynn allowed with a thoughtful nod.

“You'll still help out with the dragons though, right?” Maddie asked, a bright, hopeful smile on her face.

“And you'll let Ashlynn and me design you some dragon armour?” Lizzy added, hands clasped under her chin.

Hrafn laughed easily.

“I'd be honoured if you did,” Hrafn answered Lizzy first, “and of course I will,” he said to Maddie. “Twelve baby dragons need all the hands we can get to help keep them out of mischief, and while the girls all found a person or two they liked, only two of the boys did, so that's four baby dragons without dedicated care.”

“Sounds like a lot of work, and you're already taking care of Nevermore,” Ashlynn pointed out, concerned.

“Nevermore is starting to mature properly, so she's not as constantly playful as she used to be,” Hrafn explained. “She does still have her moments, and she's been kind of high-strung lately, but I think helping Legend mind the baby dragons has been good for her.”

“Hrafn!” Blondie called, waving as she hurried down the hall. “Hrafn! Can I get that hexclusive interview now?”

“Sure, Blondie,” Hrafn said. He had promised. “Spell you all later,” he added to the group he'd been talking to.

“Bye Hrafn!”

~oOo~

When Hrafn went down to the dragon stable the next morning to check on Legend, Nevermore, and all the baby dragons, there was one missing from the head-count. Nevermore. And he had definitely bedded her down here in the stables the night before, rather than taking her back to his dorm room.

Well, first things first before he could even go looking for her: the dragons that were here needed feeding. And Holly, Poppy, and Briar all needed to be woken up and sent back up to the school so that they could get their breakfasts. He decided to get them up first, since not all of the little dragons were awake yet, and any other bodies who could distract little dragons while he sorted out the feed would be good.

“I can't believe we actually used your hair as a blanket,” Poppy said to her sister as Hrafn helped them both to their feet.

“This is going to take a while to brush out,” Holly lamented as she tried to comb her fingers through her tresses.

“At least it's just tangles,” Briar said as she plucked hay out of her hair. “I think I've got some dragon-spit going on for me as well.”

A flash of fire swirled around Briar, but it wasn't Hrafn's purple fire, oh no. It was the little baby boy dragon that Briar and her boyfriend had adopted/been adopted by.

“Well, good morning to you too,” Briar told him, and squatted down to greet the tiny dragon properly. “Are you the one who drooled on me while I was asleep?” she asked, and stroked his crest fondly.

A tiny burp of flame and a chirrup was the answer she got. It was clearly fondly meant though, and didn't so much as singe Briar's dress.

“The boys are a lot harder to tell apart than the girls are,” Holly said thoughtfully, as she picked up and hugged her own baby dragon. “I can really see how they just got typed as 'dark' dragons.”

“I kinda like the dark blue scales,” Briar admitted and she continued to pet the little guy, “and yeah, the differences are more subtle. Like, Crocus here is the one with a hint of pink in the flame patterns on the undersides of his wings. The others have yellow, green, there are two who have red, and Cerise's one has a pale purple that's almost white.”

“So how do you tell when their wings are folded?” Holly asked at the same time as Poppy blurted out “You named him 'Crocus'?”

Hrafn, who was just a little way away filling the food troughs, really didn't think anybody in the school had any call to be incredulous about floral names. Briar, Poppy, and Holly all did, and they were hardly the only ones. Though, he supposed, mostly it was girls who had floral names, and not boys.

“I know this is Crocus because his brothers don't come up and nuzzle me like he does,” Briar said wryly. “And yes, we named him Crocus. We kind of got the idea from Hrafn, and all those bouquets and cards he sent out last year. Hopper and I picked the name because crocuses mean youthful joy, love, and abuse not in the flower language. Well, and because it's kind of a pun on Hopper's name. What did you guys name your dragons?”

“Er,” Holly and Poppy both hesitated.

“Still haven't decided?” Hrafn guessed as he walked over. “Breakfast is ready, little ones,” he said to the baby dragons. “Go get something to eat, before all of your brothers and sisters eat it first.”

The baby dragons chirped and scampered off, little wings flapping to try and augment their speed.

“So cute,” Holly cooed after them.

“I can drop you off in your dormitory hall if you like,” Hrafn offered.

“Thanks,” Briar said gratefully.

“And if any of you ladies see Nevermore before I find her? Send me a hext?” Hrafn requested.

“Of course!”

~oOo~

Hrafn had searched the school from basements to rooftops, regularly checking back at the dragon stables partly in the hope that Nevermore had shown up and partly to check on all the baby dragons. He was just about to head out to check the nearby peaks for Nevermore when Briar sent him a hext, telling him that his mother had Nevermore down at the dragon arena. His mirror-phone chimed again while he was still holding it – Cerise had sent him a picture of Nevermore, flying with a heavy collar around her neck and Faybelle being dragged along behind as she held onto one of the cables attached to it.

Hrafn teleported down to the dragon stables and marched across to the arena. He was feeling a little angry, and a little bit more betrayed. For the first, that his mother had taken Nevermore, for the second, that Faybelle had apparently helped her. He was also unhappily aware that he was not feeling at all surprised.

Hrafn reached the main gate of the arena just as his mother climbed into the saddle of an oddly compliant Nevermore, while Faybelle swayed a little where she stood next to the dragon. Her flight from holding onto that cable had apparently not been enjoyable before Nevermore had landed. It was hard to see from a distance, and she took off before he could get close enough to be sure, but it looked like the Evil Queen had used her magic to control Nevermore into behaving for her.

Just like he had caught her doing to the male baby dragons back when she was still pretending to be Mira Shards.

“Hrafn! You came!” Darling greeted happily when he reached the platform where the two teams of would-be dragon riders, as well as both of the Grimm brothers and Snow White were standing. “Did you change your mind?”

“No,” Hrafn said. “Briar and Cerise both sent me a hexts telling me where Nevermore was. I've been looking for her all morning.”

“Oh,” Darling said softly.

Holly and Poppy both winced.

“Sorry Hrafn,” Holly said. “We would have hexted you...”

“But we didn't know until just now either, and we don't have our mirror-phones in our armour,” Poppy explained.

“You're fine,” Hrafn said, and waved off the apology. “Faybelle will have some hexplaining to do if she's helped my mother hurt Nevermore, beyond just dragon-napping her, but you're fine.”

Faybelle had flown off shortly after the Evil Queen had taken Nevermore into the air. Hrafn was pretty sure she was still hanging around though. He'd find her later. After he'd made sure that Nevermore was alright.

“Perhaps the students would benefit from a more in-depth demonstration,” the Evil Queen said when she brought Nevermore back around and had her hover. “Care to join me, Snow?”

“Oh I couldn't, it's been ages,” Snow denied, but when everybody cheered encouragement for her, she was quick to change her tune. “Well if you insist. Got to give the people what they want,” she said, and whipped off her gown to reveal a set of dragon riding armour. She gave a piercing whistle as she walked across the stage.

She vanished for a moment when she jumped over the side, but then Legend was soaring up into the air, Snow White on her back.

Blondie, microphone in hand and Cedar right behind her with her mirror-pad, hurried past the two teams to the edge of the stage.

“Oh, this is fairy hexciting,” Blondie said for the camera. “The Evil Queen and Snow White are giving one spelltacular crash course in dragonsport. So stop 'dragon' your heels, and come watch!”

It was very impressive flying, but Hrafn was still more concerned with how obedient of the Evil Queen Nevermore was being.

On the grass, the gingerbread referee blew his whistle, and a ball shot out of a tiny magic portal in the very centre of the field.

“See those floating jewels above the stadium?” Blondie said, reporting for her mirror-cast still, and Cedar obligingly swung her mirror-pad around so that the camera could see what Blondie was pointing to – and just in case anybody in the stands couldn't see (unlikely), Blondie's mirror-cast was being shown on the big screen that had been installed in the stadium. There were red, blue, and yellow illusory jewels hanging in the air at random intervals. “They determine the number of points a goal is worth once a rider flies through them.”

They also apparently dissipated once they'd been flown through, as Snow White and Legend soared through the red gem and it disappeared in a shimmer of light.

Eventually, the Evil Queen landed, and Hrafn ignored his mother and her posturing for the crowd as he hurried to check on Nevermore. As soon as he snapped the control spell his mother hand cast on Nevermore, the dragon shrank down to her tiniest form and crawled into his arms.

“I've got you, girl,” he said, holding her close. “Let's get you out of here and away from that nasty old woman.”

He cleared the stage and Snow White landed Legend.

“And that's how it's done!” Blondie's voice said over the speakers. “What a great demonstration from the old guard. And now, it's time for the next generation. The teams will now take the field!”

It was a good thing, then, that Hrafn had just reached the further gate and had left the field. He did glance back, just briefly, as the gates opened. The baby dragons were all on leashes as the teams walked them out.

Cute.

He left for the dragon stable.

~oOo~

Faybelle showed up in the dragon stables just as Hrafn had finished checking over Nevermore (she was fine, thankfully) and had started pouring dragon-chow into the feeding troughs.

“I don't get you, Hrafn,” Faybelle said. “If my mother was as wicked-cool as yours, I would do anything to be ruling at her side – and you? You don't even tell people you're her son until it was already out! It could have changed everything!”

Hrafn sighed.

“How would it have changed anything?” he asked. “It sure as hex wouldn't have changed me, who I am, if people had known who my mother was.”

“It might have changed how people treated you,” Faybelle countered pointedly.

“Ah,” Hrafn hummed. “Faybelle, you're pretty. You're creative, you're good at magic, and I like you. You're a good friend, when you want to be. But I am still, as you stated when I took you to the Blue Moon Forest Fest, too much of a good guy to be your type. Hm? I'm not going to change who I am just because my mother showed up,” he said, and turned away.

Faybelle hadn't caused any harm to Nevermore that he could find, so he wasn't going to get upset with her for deciding his mother was her favourite role model. He still felt a bit betrayed, but he also still wasn't surprised, so he refused to let it get to him.

“I'm not about to do anything just to please her, either,” he said as he left the stable, “because pleasing her will eventually mean hurting someone. It always does.”

~oOo~

As interested as Hrafn might have been in the Dragon Games, he wasn't going to give his mother the satisfaction of his presence at the arena. Instead, he took Nevermore up to the school and tucked her into her little bed in his dorm room. He was just about to set a security spell on the room (so his mother absolutely could not get in, at least, not before he knew about it and could teleport back to repel her personally) and head down to Book End and see if the Mad Hatter's Tea Shop was open, when his mirror-phone buzzed.

“What's she done now?” Hrafn asked, on the assumption that anybody calling him would be doing so to talk to him about his mother. She was, unfortunately, the hot topic at the moment. Apart from dragons and the Dragon Games, but the Evil Queen was coaching a team for the Dragon Games, so it was all linked right now.

“The dragons are all big enough to ride,” Hopper's voice came through, and it was hard to tell if he was sounding bleak, or just overwhelmed. Either way, he was fortunately not a frog at the moment, so far as Hrafn could tell by his voice. “Briar, Cerise and I all ran over to the dragon stables when the teams came out, and ours, as well as the dragons that don't have riders, are all just as big.”

“Oh hex,” Hrafn breathed. He'd known his mother might do something like that, but so soon? Right in the middle of the very first Dragon Game? “I'll be right down,” he said.

“Thanks.”

Hrafn set his security spell, magicked himself into the dragon armour Lizzy and Ashlynn had made for him, and teleported down to the dragon stables.

The male dragons were a lot easier to tell apart now. The subtle colour differences in the patterns of their under-wings were now unsubtle, and in evidence on their bellies, the tufts on the ends of their tales, and the crests on the tops and sides of their heads, as well as the under-wing. They were still predominantly midnight blue all over, but it was possible to say, for example, 'the green' and know at a glance which that was, rather than having to lift their wings to check. Not that Hrafn was inclined to do so. He'd named all the unclaimed dragons. The two reds were Merlot and Spice, the green was Basil, and the yellow was Flaxen.

Hopper and Briar had managed to get Crocus to calm down enough to usher him into a stall, where they were making proper headway with getting him to behave for them. Cerise had just about got her dragon Remus to behave, but with every flared wingspan she couldn't prevent him from seeing, he got out of hand again.

Start with the dragon that was almost under control.

“Come on, boy,” Hrafn coaxed, helping Cerise guide the newly-large, but still actually a baby, dragon into one of the stalls.

“Thanks Hrafn,” Cerise said, huffing and panting from the exertion, but her smile relieved as she set about properly calming Remus down now that the other dragons in the stables couldn't get at him to rile him up some more. “This was so much easier when he was small. I'm thinking maybe I should keep my dragon armour down here from now on.”

“It might be a good idea,” Hrafn agreed. “Hopper? Briar?” he called over.

“I think we're good here,” Briar said, stroking Crocus's forehead gems, “and my armour is up in my dorm room as well.”

“I've got mine here,” Hopper volunteered, then turned to his girlfriend. “You stay with Crocus, I'll help Hrafn with the others,” he suggested, and hurried to get his armour on. When he got back, Hrafn was doing his best to isolate Flaxen from the other three.

“He'd the most luridly coloured, so he's the most upsetting to the others when he starts posturing,” Hrafn explained. He was still trying to not use too much magic too near to the dragons, so it wasn't as easy as it could have been. Still, even a little bit of magic made it easier than no magic at all.

“Right,” Hopper agreed.

Once Flaxen was penned, Briar left Crocus to pet the other dragon into actual calm, freeing Hopper and Hrafn to start wrestling Basil into the next stall over.

“You're the best,” Hopper said to his girlfriend as he passed her, and gave her a quick peck on the cheek before he left the stall to help Hrafn.

~oOo~

“Phew,” Cerise said, relieved, as she slumped back against the Spice's stall door. He'd been the very last dragon penned, and Cerise had gone into each stall with a bag of dragon chow to keep them distracted and content in their new situations. “They really are still just baby dragons, aren't they? They just got bigger.”

“Yep,” Hrafn confirmed. “Want me to take you up to get your armour now that the emergency is over?” he offered.

“Yes please,” Briar and Cerise answered at the same time.

“Right. Be right back, Hopper,” Hrafn promised.

Hopper waved the other boy off, and while Hrafn, Briar, and Cerise disappeared in a wash of purple flames back up to the school, he took off his helmet and ran the hose over his head for a few seconds. Getting five almost full-sized male dragons (Hopper hadn't needed to help with Remus, since Cerise and Hrafn had that under control) into individual stalls was no easy feat. Not even with a bit of magic to help. He shook the water out of his hair, grabbed a towel to rub out the rest, finger-combed the still somewhat wet red locks back into place, and was just reaching for his helmet to put back on when Hrafn and the girls returned.

Neither Briar nor Cerise had gotten changed into their armour while they were gone, just grabbed it out of their rooms. The stable had changing rooms, so it wasn't a problem.

While they'd grabbed their armour, Hrafn had also collected Nevermore. He set her down in the stall next to Remus while Cerise and Briar got changed.

“Since we do not have enough players to take the field,” Snow White's voice declared over the public announcements speakers. “We surrender.”

“What?” Hrafn yelped, and turned to stare at the doors of the stable that led towards the arena incredulously.

“Lizzy got jumped on by her dragon in the first round, heavily enough that she got carried off on a stretcher,” Hopper supplied.

“She'll be fine, she was just winded and bruised a bit,” Cerise added.

“So the Light team were a person down going into this one,” Briar continued, hands twisting together with worry. “Someone must have gotten hurt.”

“I wonder who it was,” Hopper said, worry just as clear in his green eyes as Briar's was in her twisting hands.

Hrafn wondered whose fault it was. Other than his mother's for telling her team to use dangerous tactics, of course. But the Evil Queen wasn't on the field. She was coaching. Someone actually on the team would have had to decide that the Evil Queen was giving good advice.

There was someone out on that field who was willing to hurt their friends, in a game, on the Evil Queen's say-so.

“Hex and curses!” Hrafn growled, and went to grab a dragon saddle. He may have had a few wisps of purple fire dancing through his hair. Nothing else was burning though, so it was alright, however alarming.

“Hrafn?” Cerise queried.

“If we let Snow White surrender, the Evil Queen wins,” Hrafn explained, his movements jerky with anger. “It's a petty, short-term win, maybe, but it's a win, and some people might start getting the idea that hurting their friends to get what they want is okay. If I go out there, and compete, then my mother get what she wants – me, being like her, even in the most superficial way. No matter how I flip this script, she wins. I don't want her to.”

“So... what are you going to do?” Hopper asked.

“I am going to deny the Evil Queen her petty win, and I am going to try and disappoint my mother, even if it looks like I'm giving her what she wants,” Hrafn said as he lifted the dragon saddle onto Nevermore's back.

Cerise, Briar, and Hopper exchanged speaking glances, and then moved to get riding tack for Remus and Crocus.

“Guys?” Hrafn asked, surprised.

“We've got your back, Hrafn,” Cerise promised.

~oOo~

“Hrafn! Cerise! Briar! Hopper!” the whole of the previous Light team greeted gladly.

As Briar had said, Lizzy was still hurt from earlier. The more recent injury was Darling.

“What happened?” Briar asked as she hurried over to Darling, leaving Hopper to hold onto Crocus's reigns.

“Apple dived at me to stop me from making a goal,” Darling said. “I don't think she meant to knock me off, but, well,” she gestured to her injured leg.

“Would you ladies object to us taking the field in your place?” Hrafn asked solemnly.

The team turned to their injured captain.

“Do it,” Darling said.

~oOo~

“The Light does not surrender to the Dark!”

People who had begun standing and shuffling towards the entrance of the stadium stopped, heads turning, to see who had spoken.

Three dragons, one of them with two riders, flew over the stands and to the centre of the field, where they landed, and the riders all dismounted.

“If you'll have us, Coach,” Cerise said, eyes fixed on Snow White as Hopper, Briar, and Hrafn stood in line behind her.

They'd agreed that Hrafn wouldn't take the lead. That the symmetry of his being even acting captain under Snow White, while Apple was captain under the Evil Queen... well, he'd already fought Apple for Student Council President. He wasn't going to fight her for dominance of dragonsport. He wouldn't give his mother the satisfaction.

Cerise's sporting, competitive nature was a known factor. She was the natural choice for alternative captain. Hrafn would be hiding his presence on the team behind her reputation, and hoping that people forgot his own. He'd been on the Bookball team as well as being Student Council President, after all.

“The Dragon Games are back on!” Snow White declared with a smile.

While the crowd cheered, Briar went to stand off to the side near Maddie. She was the designated supernumerary player for the team, there to take the place of anybody who got hurt. Hopper and Hrafn followed Cerise up into the air.

Hrafn had wanted to be the supernumerary player as soon as it was clear they had enough to be able to do that. Nevermore would have accepted Briar or Hopper as a rider without Hrafn there in the saddle as well. She was old enough to be able to make that decision, unlike the almost-adult-sized baby dragons, who hadn't had the time or opportunity to learn nearly as much yet. As well as that, he was so involved in taking care of all of the baby dragons, that any of them would accept him as a rider if needed.

Darling had said he did need to take the field though, even if he didn't want to be in the spotlight as temporary acting captain. If he was going to be seen going against his mother, then staying peripheral to the competition wouldn't work. If he got hurt, Briar could ride Nevermore. If Cerise got hurt, then Hrafn could change to Remus and Briar would ride Nevermore. If Hopper got hurt, then Briar could and would ride Crocus.

Hopper wasn't the supernumerary player because then Hrafn would have been the only guy on the field, and that would have drawn too much attention to him. Cerise couldn't be, because she was the acting captain.

The gingerbread referee blew his whistle, and the ball shot out of its little portal in the grass.

Apple and Cerise followed it.


	20. Chapter 20

Hrafn played interceptor. Any time the ball was in the air, he and Nevermore raced through to try and catch it. If he caught it, then he'd fly up to Cerise, then ahead of her, and drop it back to her. Cerise was the offensive player, attacking, snatching the ball from the holds of other riders, and was the chief member of the team aiming for the goals. Hopper played defence, blocking the other team from getting ahead, from reaching the floating jewels, and doing his best to keep any throw from going into the goal.

It wasn't quite the same friendly game it had been before Darling was hurt. To Melody and Ashlynn, they called “nothing personal!” and “better luck next time!” as they were blocked or had the ball stolen from them. Apple, pointedly, didn't get the same consideration.

Not even when she tried to initiate conversation as they flew.

“You against me,” Apple called over as she flew near Hrafn. “Doesn't this feel right?  
Hrafn guided Nevermore into a barrel roll that took them away from Apple. He'd intercepted her throw to Ashlynn, now he had to get the ball to Cerise.

“It's our destinies,” Apple tried again. “Don't you desire victory over me?”

Hrafn passed the ball to Cerise, and turned Nevermore to head off Melody, so she couldn't block Cerise from flying through the floating gems.

Both sides scored more goals, more points, and just after Apple had managed to pull her team ahead by ten points with a goal that had been worth sixty, Nevermore bucked under Hrafn.

“What is it girl?” he asked, worried, and his eyes went large as he spotted fiery pink smoke coiling through Nevermore's mouth and nose. “She's going to sneeze! Get out of the way!” Hrafn yelled warning, as he tried to pull her around so that Nevermore wouldn't catch the stands – or the people in them – on fire.

The people managed to get mostly clear. There would be a lot of soot stains that needed to get washed out later. The shiny new stadium couldn't get out of the way of course, and Nevermore kept on sneezing fire all over the place.

Hrafn finally managed to get her to land, so at least her sneezes weren't turning her around in the air and sending fire absolutely everywhere any more. One last big sneeze, and Nevermore curled up, paws over her nose, as she shrank down small enough for Hrafn to pick her up.

“Poor thing,” he said softly, and picked her up.

“Hrafn!” Maddie and Briar yelled as they ran over.

“Is everything okay?” Maddie asked.

“Are you and Nevermore alright?” Briar asked at the same time.

Cerise and Hopper landed right by them, as did Melody and Ashlynn. Apple and her dragon stayed in the air.

“What happened?” Cerise asked.

“It might just be me being paranoid, but I'm inclined to blame my mother for Nevermore's sudden sneezing fit,” Hrafn said as he stroked Nevermore's crest.

~oOo~

“Book End breaking news!” Blondie's voice echoed out over the speakers. “Blondie Lockes reporting live from what's left of the new dragon centre, ever-after a devastating blaze! Headmaster Grimm has just handed the Evil Queen the keys to the school. She vows to catch the person responsible for the fire, even if it's her own son, Hrafn!”

“I think that maybe you'd better get out of here,” Ashlynn urged Hrafn quietly.

“I think everybody that can had better get out of here, if the Evil Queen really has taken over the school,” Hrafn countered, but he didn't disagree. “I'm going to check that the fire didn't get as far as the stables, and I'm going to bed Nevermore down,” he decided, and with a wave, he and the tiny dragon in his arms disappeared under an invisibility spell.

“The question remains: will this new headmistress restore order to Ever After High?” Blondie asked, “her being the Evil Queen and all. Let's go live for her statement.”

“Students, don't get over hexcited,” the Evil Queen purred, as she stood in the smoky shadows of the fires. “I am but a temporary substitute,” she assured them. “Milton Grimm will resume leadership as headmaster as soon as this crisis is over.”

Headmaster Grimm, standing behind her, said “ribbit,” and a worryingly vacant expression on his face.

“He has a frog in his throat,” the Evil Queen said, explaining away the man's uncharacteristic behaviour. “I will personally see to it that the fire damage is repaired spelltacularly quick!” she declared, and with a wave of pink magic, the fires were put out, all damage repaired, and the smoke cleared. “See? Trust headmistress Queenie. Everything is under control. Citizens, students, as you were. Nothing to see here!”

~oOo~

Nevermore whimpered an apology while Hrafn swept the stable floor.

“I know you didn't mean to, girl,” he assured her.

“They're saying you set the fire,” Apple said as she cautiously entered. “On purpose.”

“That's an interesting interpretation of events,” Hrafn said neutrally, and continued to focus on sweeping.

“Well don't worry,” Apple said, “your mom has promised to restore order, and she's so powerful, I know she can.”

“That is also an interesting take on things,” Hrafn said, and turned a derisive eye on the blonde girl. “Do you really believe she would? Really?” he demanded, making it clear with his tone that he, for one, did not. He turned his back on Apple, and went back to sweeping.

“You should give your mom another chance!” Apple insisted. “Aren't you all about changing your story? Your mom broke out of that mirror prison and literally walked across broken glass just to be with you!”

Hrafn stiffened.

“How could you know that? No, wait,” he said, raising a hand to stop her from saying anything as he thought it through. “Back before the rest of us knew the truth, you were the one who introduced us to 'Mira Shards'.”

“Um...” Apple hesitated.

“It was you,” Hrafn accused. “You released her!”

“She promised!” Apple defended herself quickly. Desperately. “She promised me my Happily Ever After -”

“That's what this is about?!” Hrafn demanded, and purple fire licked up his arms and through his hair. “My mother is free, and Darling is hurt -”

“That wasn't supposed to happen,” Apple defended herself.

“- Because you were selfish!” Hrafn snapped, ignoring her interjection, eyes blazing with magical fire as he advanced on the girl. “Selfish enough to believe that as long as you got your happily ever after, how you got it and who suffered for it didn't matter! It's all about what you want, and nothing else matters.”

“I was selfish?” Apple demanded, incredulous. “What about you? Why didn't you tell everybody, tell me, straight away, that your mother was the Evil Queen? Do you know how much that could have changed things?”

“It wouldn't have changed anything,” Hrafn countered. “Snow Whites get poisoned by Evil Queens. I'm not one,” he said, and gestured to his body to emphasise how much he was not a girl. “And yes, you're selfish. If it's not about you, if it doesn't fit your view of how the world should be, then it's not important, or it's wrong. But that's not how the story goes any more. You can't force people to go along with destinies they don't want – especially not since I dispersed the Storybook of Legends. Remember that?”

Apple looked away. Acknowledgement enough.

“I know it might seem otherwise from how I've been allowed to take Hero Training and Advanced Villainy, but you can't be on both sides,” Hrafn said pointedly as he headed for the door. “Good or evil. Pick one.” Then he scoffed. “What am I even saying. You already have. Congratulations, Miss White. You've found the Evil Queen of your generation.”

“What?” Apple breathed, eyes wide.

“In your own mirror,” Hrafn said, and closed the door of the stables resolutely behind him.

~oOo~

“You're packing. Why are you packing?” Dexter asked, confused.

“Because the Evil Queen has taken over the school, and it's only a matter of time before we're all feeling it,” Hrafn said. “You know, my mother? Who I'm sure I told you thought world domination was a great idea for a mother-son bonding hexperience.”

Now that Hrafn mentioned it, Dexter could recall that conversation, vaguely.

“Where are you going to go?” Dexter asked. “When? Are you taking anybody with you? I really don't think you should go alone.”

“I'm taking Nevermore,” Hrafn said, “and it will probably be easier for people to get out if they're not in a large group. If you think safety in numbers is a good idea, then meet up off school grounds. I'm not leaving right away though. I'm going to spend the coming school day warning as many people as I can to get out. Including you, Dexter. Pack a bag, get Cupid, and sneak off like it's a perfectly normal date down to, I don't know, Hocus Latte or somewhere – then don't come back.”

“Got it,” Dexter agreed. “Should I tell Daring and Darling as well?”

“Tell everybody, but quietly,” Hrafn said. “She'll notice a mass-exodus of students, but people come and go after school all the time. It just has to look natural, and it needs to happen before she stops pretending nice.”

“Got it,” Dexter said again.

~oOo~

“Hey Cerise,” Hrafn said, and casually dropped down into the seat next to her.

“Hey Hrafn,” Cerise answered. “How are you holding up? I mean, with your mother in charge, and all.”

“I'm not staying,” Hrafn told her softly, “and I'm telling everyone I can to get out while it's still possible. Just because she hasn't been obviously evil yet, doesn't mean it's not coming. I'm pretty sure she's cursing the staff already.”

Cerise gasped, and grey eyes flickered over to where her sister was sitting at a different table.

“Your dad's still okay,” Hrafn offered in an even lower whisper. “But I really think you should get him, Ramona, and yourself, out. As fast as you can.”

Cerise nodded.

“I'll figure out a way,” she promised.

“I'm taking Nevermore and leaving at dawn,” Hrafn said. “I know a spot in the Enchanted Forest where I can hide out. Hard to get to, and only in range because I'll be flying.”

“I'll meet you at the dragon stables then,” Cerise said. “Hopefully, I won't be alone. Remus should be able to carry two people at least, even if... even if Dad won't leave his students.”

“Your dad is awesome,” Hrafn said as he reached over to take her hand in his, and gave it a gentle, comforting squeeze. “I would absolutely carry him with me on Nevermore, if you need me to.”

“Thanks.”

Hrafn nodded and got up from the table. He had other friends around the Castleteria he still had to pass the word on to. Some he sat down to talk to, others he just tapped on the shoulder and warned he was leaving, and they should to.

He didn't see Faybelle listening in when he told Briar and Hopper, who also agreed to meet him at the dragon stables at dawn, but he really wasn't worried about people overhearing his plans to leave. It might get back to his mother before he could follow through, but he thought it was pretty unlikely, and the more people who got the hint to leave, the better.

~oOo~

A lot of people went out to Book End after school let out that afternoon, but Hrafn was worried by the number that came obliviously back in the evening. The number of people who met him down at the dragon stables before dawn the next day was a not much more reassuring. Hrafn knew that every up-sized baby dragon could carry two people, and Legend could carry three. As it was though, there would be some doubling up, but not as much as Hrafn had hoped for.

Some of the dragon riders had persuaded their room mates to go out after school the day before and not come back. Others hadn't, and while uncomfortable with the idea of leaving friends in danger, recognised that they also did need to get themselves to safety.

He would have been completely thrilled for there to be enough people in need of a ride that Nevermore would carry two other riders while he persuaded Basil or Merlot or one of the other males to carry him. As it was, Poppy, Darling, and Melody would be sitting solo in their saddles, while Apple's dragon Peaches and all of the male dragons who didn't have riders were being left behind. Nevermore would, at least, have two riders: Hrafn himself, and Professor Badwolf. Cerise had been able to persuade both her father and big sister to make their escape with them, and was carrying Ramona behind her in Remus's saddle.

Hrafn gave Merlot, Spice, Basil and Flaxen one last scratch on their crests each, and a bag of feed, then led the others out of the stable and into the air.

They weren't just heading into the Enchanted Forest, following the path that most students took when they felt like taking going on a nature walk. That wouldn't put enough distance between them and the Evil Queen. Well, not for Hrafn to be happy about it, anyway. No, they flew over the Enchanted Forest for a couple of hours, which was sufficient to not only outstrip anybody following by foot by a large margin, but also to turn the school into a small shadow on the horizon, before Hrafn led everybody to land their dragons in a clearing.

He hopped down and headed over to a bush.

“This doesn't look like much of a hiding place,” Ramona commented as she slid down from behind Cerise, glad to get her feet on the ground again. “Please don't tell me we're stopping to smell the flowers.”

“Not hexactly,” Hrafn said, amused, and pushed aside a branch just enough to reveal the woodland pixie that had been hiding in the bush, observing them.

“Oh! A woodland pixie! How hexciting!” Ashlynn exclaimed, hurrying forward and going to her knees to meet the small being – who in turn seemed fascinated by Ashlynn's hair. “How do you do?” she greeted.

“While the Fairy Queen rules, it's the pixies that protect the Enchanted Forest,” Hrafn explained. “Very magical little individuals.”

The pixie playing with (in) Ashlynn's hair chirped.

“She says her name is Featherly,” Ashlynn translated.

Another pixie stuck her head down, upside-down, out of the tree Darling was leaning against.

“And that's Deerla,” Ashlynn said, translating more pixie-chatter.

Deerla popped back into the tree, then up out of a nearby bush, then crawled under an elevated tree-root so that she was right by Darling's leg. The leg that had been hurt during the Dragon Game. Deerla lay one tiny hand against Darling's leg.  
“Pixies have strong healing magic, and she knows you're hurt,” Hrafn said explained in answer to Darling's confused look.

“Deela says: that should heal you,” Ashlynn supplied, translating the pixie-chatter.

Darling had been favouring her leg, for all that she didn't let it stop her. Now, she tested it and cheered relief.

“Wow! Good as new!” she exclaimed, arms in the air joyfully – and just in time to catch another pixie that decided to drop out of her hiding place and squeak her own greeting.

“And this is Harelow,” Ashlynn translated.

Darling set Harelow down gently.

“We'd better get out of the open,” Poppy reminded them all. “Do they know a place where we can hide?”

Hrafn nodded and knelt down to be at eye level with the three pixies.

“Would you be willing to give us a place to stay?” he asked. “Somewhere hidden and safe from the Evil Queen?”

The pixies nodded their heads and squeaked confirmation, then led the way out of the clearing and into the undergrowth, deeper and deeper into the Enchanted Forest.

“Has anyone seen Daring lately?” Darling asked as the pixies led them past a lake.

“I saw him lots of times at school, and at the dragon centre, and once in a dream, but he was a goat,” Maddie answered.

“Why Darling?” Holly asked. “Are you worried?”

“I don't like it,” Darling said. “It's not like him to misplace his hand mirror,” she explained, withdrawing the item from her purse. “And neither Dexter or I could find him before we left. He's not even answering his mirror-phone.”

~oOo~

With the dragons settled in the pixie's grove, and everybody settling in, Hrafn approached Professor Badwolf, hoping for a private word.

“Sir?” Hrafn enquired. “If I could please have a moment of your time?”

Professor Badwolf regarded Hrafn solemnly a moment before he nodded, and let himself be led to just out of hearing range, so long as they spoke softly. Not actually beyond hearing, and definitely not out of sight.

“Sir, may I have your permission to date your daughter?” Hrafn asked. “Provided she consents to the idea as well, of course.”

Professor Badwolf huffed. Thankfully, he didn't puff as well. Just folded his arms over his chest and gave the request a moment of thought.

“I don't think Ramona much cares for my permission,” he pointed out.

“Maybe not,” Hrafn allowed, “but I get the feeling that Cerise probably does.”

Human features vanished beneath fur and snout and great sharp teeth as Professor Badwolf snarled at him. Arms uncrossed and claw-tipped paws fisted at his sides.

Hrafn kept his spine straight, his knees locked, and his mouth shut as he waited out his teacher.

“How do you even -?” Professor Badwolf growled out.

“I came across Kitty teasing Cerise about her ears,” Hrafn said. “I offered to swap secrets to cheer her up. I've known since not long after I came to Ever After. I haven't told anyone, and I've done my best to help keep it under wraps.”

Wolfish features faded back into human ones, and growling and snarling settled into grumbling.

“I really do care about Cerise very much, Sir,” Hrafn persisted, “but no matter what my feelings for Cerise, I'm not going to willingly do anything that would put her at odds with her family. I respect the hex out of you Sir, and I know she loves you.”

Professor Badwolf huffed in a sort of resigned way, though also pleased at the acknowledgement of his youngest daughter's feelings regarding him, and re-crossed his arms over his chest.

“Fine,” he allowed, albeit grudgingly. “But you have to go through Ramona as well before you can ask Cerise.”

“Yes Sir, thank you Sir,” Hrafn said. He gave a short bow, then went to corner Cerise's big sister for a similar private talk.

It turned out that Ramona and Cerise had both observed Hrafn's conversation with their father, and both of them were very, very curious when he approached them and said he needed a word with Ramona.

“Is this something I should be worried about?” Cerise asked cautiously, rather than immediately giving them privacy. “You're not looking to start up General Villainy classes while we're here, right?”

“I'm not, I promise,” Hrafn assured her with a chuckle. He quickly caught one of Cerise's hands in his, and lifted it so that he could kiss the back of her knuckles. “Just a quick word. That's all.”

“Alright,” Cerise allowed, and went to check on Remus.

“So, what do you need?” Ramona asked, straight to the point.

“Your dad said I needed your permission as well, before I could ask your sister out,” Hrafn summarised.

Ramona blinked in shock.

“What.”

“I want to date Cerise,” Hrafn said, “as in, not casually. I've asked her father's permission, now I'm asking her big sister's.”

“So you do know,” Ramona said thoughtfully. “I'd kinda wondered, but Dad didn't think so, and Cerise wouldn't say. You kept it a secret, too. How long have you known?”

“Kitty spotted Cerise's ears, and I bribed her with a bag of catnip to keep it under her hat,” Hrafn said. “Back in my first year at Ever After.”

Ramona nodded, shifting her weight a little as she considered the boy in front of her.

“Cerise know you're asking?” Ramona checked.

“I want it to be okay with her family first,” Hrafn said.

“Does that mean you even called our mother?” Ramona asked, eyebrows raised.

“I cornered Sparrow in his room yesterday and asked him to make the call and introductions,” Hrafn confirmed. Sparrow Hood was the son of Robin Hood, who was cousin to Little Red Riding Hood. Little Red had been surprised to get a call from her cousin's son, but had also been pleased to be introduced to the boy who wanted to date her youngest. “I'm not sure if her telling me I had to get permission from Cerise's father – her exact words – was meant to be an impossible task, or proof that I really did care about Cerise. She sure looked surprised when I told her I was planning on doing that anyway, even without her telling me to.”

Ramona chuckled at that.

“You'll do,” she allowed with a smile. “If you hurt Cerise though, then the whole pack will make you regret it. We on the same page?”

“Reading you loud and clear,” Hrafn confirmed.

“Good.”

~oOo~

“Got whatever it was sorted out?” Cerise asked Hrafn when he sat down next to her.

“Mostly,” Hrafn agreed. “Still one person I need to talk to.”

“Oh yeah? Who?” Cerise probed, curious. “And what were you talking to them about, anyway?”

“I was getting permission,” Hrafn said, and reached for Cerise's nearer hand.

“Hrafn?”

“It was pointed out to me,” Hrafn began, “that while I had regularly and consistently sought out your company at dances and parties, I hadn't actually asked you on an actual date for a very long time. You deserve better than that,” he said firmly.

“You don't have to. I don't mind,” Cerise said with a smile. “Just that you always have the time to dance with me, when I know there are a lot of princesses around the school who'd love to have your attention -”

“Cerise,” Hrafn cut her off gently. “I want to.”

Her cheeks pinked, just a bit.

“Hrafn!”

And there went the moment.

“I thought this place was a secret?” Cerise asked quietly.

“Hidden and safe from the Evil Queen,” Hrafn reminded her with a sigh. “Apple can't be quite that far gone yet, or the pixies wouldn't have let her find us. I admit, I'm surprised.”

“Hrafn,” Apple called again.

“Miss White,” he acknowledged, voice neutral. He didn't look over.

“I'm sorry. I was selfish,” Apple said.

“And?” Hrafn prompted.

“And your mother hasn't changed,” Apple conceded.

Hrafn snorted derisively.

“And?” he demanded.

“And I had,” she admitted. “And now I want to change again. For the better. For good.”

“And?” Hrafn said again, finally turning just enough to see her over his shoulder, out of the corner of his eye. Oh, he could do this all night, if no one stopped him. Apple might even learn something new if he kept it up long enough.

“And I know I can't turn back the pages, but I believe... I believe we can all still have our Happily Ever Afters,” Apple asserted, though she wasn't looking particularly assertive right now. A bit more down-trodden and determined as consequence of that, but not quite so assertive. “But not until we stop your mother.”

“And?” Hrafn poked.

“And... I'm sorry that I tried to push you into following in your mother's fairy tale footsteps.”

“And?”

“Hrafn!” Briar scolded. “Isn't that enough?”

“I honestly don't know,” Hrafn admitted thoughtfully. “Has Miss White apologised for getting Darling hurt? Has she apologised for lying to all of us when she introduced 'Mira Shards'? Has she apologised for putting the whole of Ever After in danger by releasing the Evil Queen from her mirror prison?”

The girls around the fire gasped. Hopper abruptly turned into his froggy form – something that had been happening less often since he and Briar had started dating. A growl rumbled in Professor Badwolf's chest.

To her credit, Apple didn't deny it, and she did look ashamed of herself.


	21. Chapter 21

“We are going to do something about the Evil Queen, right?” Hopper asked after Apple had apologised, and been invited to sit around the fire with the rest of them. “We're not going to just leave things they way they are, right? Hrafn? You have a plan, don't you?”

“Running was the plan,” Hrafn admitted with a sigh, “but you're right. It's only going to hold up for so long. I could try calling in my dad, but there's no guarantee he'd be able to talk my mother down, or that he'd get here in time.”

Pixie-chatter drew their attention, as Featherly offered a basket of fruit.

“Thank you, Featherly,” Ashlynn said as she took a pear for herself and a peach for Maddie. “The pixies say that if we're going to face the Evil Queen, we need to nourish ourselves.”

“The Evil Queen has turned a bunch of the students and all of the staff into creatures,” Apple supplied. “The school is like a mile high off the ground, and she's got it surrounded by dark, dark dragons.”

“Then we really will need our strength,” Hrafn confirmed, and carefully lifted a bunch of grapes out of the basket. “Thanks, Featherly.”

A bit further around the circle, Apple picked out of the basket the fruit she had been named for. Moments later, she started choking on her first bite.

“Apple?” Lizzy asked, worried.

“Are you okay?” Holly asked, standing from where she'd sat.

Apple stumbled away from the fire, one hand around her throat, unable to cough up whatever was choking her. She managed to get a few steps before she fell.

“Apple!” Briar exclaimed as she fell to her knees beside her friend. Whereupon she noticed a blackened apple, with one bite taken out of it, in Apple's hand. “Where did that come from?!” she demanded, snatching it from Apple, only for it to dissolve into fiery pink nothingness.

“What kind of apple turns black?” Poppy asked.

“The magically created, poisoned kind,” Professor Badwolf supplied. “Miss Beauty asks a very valid question. How did a poisoned apple get into the pixie's fruit basket?”

“We'd better check that she's breathing,” Darling said, and knelt beside Briar so that she could press her ear to Apple's chest.

“Is she -?” Holly started to ask, worried.

Apple let out a snore.

“She's breathing alright,” Poppy said, relieved. Everybody seemed to breathe again, relieved that the poisoned fruit hadn't killed Apple outright.

From above, the screeching of dragons broke the still night air.

“I think I know where the apple came from,” Hrafn said as he looked up. Faybelle was sitting on the back of one of the three dragons that were circling above them. It was hard to tell them apart in the dark, but it looked like she was riding Basil.

“Get Hrafn!” Faybelle ordered.

Flaxen and either Spice or Merlot (it was hard to tell those two apart when it was daylight, at night? Practically impossible) dived towards the pixie hollow where they'd been taking shelter.

“Sit,” Hrafn counter-ordered.

When neither dragon listened, Hrafn dived out of the way of their claws. His mother must have enchanted them so they'd listen to her. Again.

“She wants to play it that way? Fine,” Hrafn said, and gathered magic in his hands.

The pixies hopped out of the bushes around him, and contributed more magic to the spell.

“Dark dragons that attack by night, I cast you back 'til morning light!” Hrafn intoned, and the protection spell grew, pushing outwards, not letting the dragons through.

One of them – and if it had been hard to tell them apart when it was just dark, trying to tell through the purple light of his protection spell made it genuinely impossible – tried breathing fire. It bounced back up into the face of the other. Frustrated, those two dragons took off back towards the school.

“No! Heel!” Faybelle scolded. “What are you, dragons or chickens?” she demanded.

The dragon she was riding turned tale then too, and followed his brothers through the night sky, away from the pixie's hollow.

“We're coming for you Hrafn!” Faybelle yelled back in warning.

~oOo~

A little magic between Hrafn and the pixies produced a glass coffin for Apple – ventilated, so she could still breathe, but it would protect her too – and a bed of flowers for her to rest in.

“Do you think she'll snore for years and years and years and years?” Maddie asked, her litany of 'and years' cut off by Darling gently elbowing her side.

“I can't bear to see Apple like this,” Ashlynn said.

“She's not gone,” Darling reassured them. “She's just... waiting for her Happily Ever After.”

“But,” Holly sniffed, “but it could be hundreds of years before she wakes up!”

“I'm sure we can find Daring a lot faster than that,” Melody said. “Wherever he is.”

“Yeah,” Darling said musingly. “Where is Daring?”

“I'm sorry, everybody,” Hrafn said softly.

“Hrafn?” Cerise asked, confused. “What are you apologising for?”

“For the Evil Queen having any interest in Ever After High at all,” he said. “I was so sure my legacy didn't matter, that it would be safe for me to attend, even with my mother behind every mirror. If I'd never -”

“No,” Cerise cut him off. “You don't get to blame yourself for anything your mother has done or will do. Okay? You didn't break the Wonderland Curse because your mother cast it. You broke it because Lizzy asked you to, and she didn't know who your mother was when she asked. Ever since she revealed herself, you have avoided your mother. What she's done is not your fault.”

“Besides,” Briar said, trying to smile, “Apple has always wanted to follow her destiny. That destiny included an Evil Queen, a poisoned apple, and forever-after sleep.”

“But if I'd gone somewhere else, then her attention would have been there, rather than here,” Hrafn protested.

“Then you would have had friends wherever you went,” Cerise asserted, “and we would all have missed out on getting the chance to know you. I'm glad you came to Ever After High.”

“Hrafn, you didn't turn the school into a dark fortress of evil,” Darling said.

“We understand, Hrafn,” Ashlynn agreed. “We all know you don't want to follow your mother's story, and we support your choice.”

“Thanks,” Hrafn said, and took a deep breath. “I think I need to go back to the school.”

“Hrafn!”

“I hope that I might be able to get my mother out of the school. Maybe get the other dragons out of her control. At least I should be able to find Daring and get him here,” Hrafn explained.

“That's right. Only the right kiss will set her free,” Darling said as she withdrew the hand mirror she'd been carrying in her purse. “Daring's.”

“Free Daring,” the mirror said, flashing green light.

Darling dropped the mirror in surprise, though fortunately it didn't break when it landed in the grass. When the green light faded, Daring stood before them. His hair was a mess, he had bags under his eyes, and a few stains on his jacket.

“Daring!” Darling breathed in shock. “That's where you've been!”

“Don't look at me,” Daring said, using one arm as a wall between himself and his sister. “I'm hideous! I was trapped in there without a hair brush!”

Darling shook her head and pulled a comb out of her handbag for him. He was fine with swamp swimming, and being covered in sweat and dirt from Hero classes or Bookball, but fairy forbid he should go without a hairbrush between times.

“That's the Booking Glass,” Hrafn recognised, stunned. “Oh hex. That's the Booking Glass!” he cheered. “Yes! Oh, now this is a game changer!” he declared, and scooped up the mirror off the grass.

“Uh, Hrafn?” Darling questioned, confused.

“Okay, so, in with all the other reasons for me to go back to the school, somewhere in either the regular library or the Library of Elders, there's the book that had the spell that was originally used to trap my mother in the mirror realm,” Hrafn explained. “This?” he said as he waved the mirror back and forth slightly. “This makes things a lot easier on the research front.”

“How?” Lizzy asked, intrigued. “I mean, we all saw Daring being released from it...”

“And we can use it to capture the Evil Queen the same way,” Hrafn said, and looked it over. “It was made by dark fairy magic, and is normally kept locked up. It's a dangerous object. I'm guessing Snow White got it out to use on my mother, and it somehow got mixed up with Daring's hand mirrors.”

“They do look alike,” Darling agreed.

“Faybelle dropped a mirror during the game, and I picked it up to give back to her,” Daring said thoughtfully, a lot more calm now that he'd combed his hair. He still wasn't quite his usual dashing self, but some sleep, and a little magic to get his clothes clean, would fix that. “I can't think of any other time I might have made a mistake of which mirror was and wasn't mine.”

“I'd guess that Faybelle made the switch,” Melody suggested. “Stealing the Booking Glass from Snow White, only for it to get mixed up with yours.”

“You were lugging a whole bag of hand mirrors around,” Poppy agreed dryly.

“Mirrors are cheap, and I buy in bulk,” Daring said airily with an easy shrug.

“So how does it work?” Cerise asked, determined to get them all back on track.

“We were just talking, and it started doing stuff,” Darling said.

Maddie grabbed the mirror out of Hrafn's hand, and before he could stop her, she'd tapped at the gems beneath the mirror.

“Hellooo? Mirror lady?” Maddie asked it. “Start doing magic stuff!”

“Pass code incorrect,” the mirror said as it gave Maddie a (mercifully light) electric shock.

“Dark fairy magic,” Hrafn reminded Maddie gently. “It's actually locked, so only a dark fairy can use it freely and at will, but if you input the pass code, then you don't have to be a dark fairy to use it.”

“But we don't have the pass code,” Holly recognised.

“Unfortunately,” Hrafn agreed, and raised an eyebrow at Maddie. “The correct pass code had to have been entered for Daring to have been captured by it. Now that a new code, a wrong one, has been entered, we need to either put in the correct code – which we would be very lucky to guess without frying ourselves.”

Maddie chuckled weakly.

“Or get a dark fairy to unlock it for us,” Hrafn finished.

“So it's hopeless then,” Ashlynn said.

“No,” Ramona denied. “It's not.”

“But we don't have the pass code, and we definitely don't have a dark fairy on hand willing to help us,” Lizzy pointed out.

“No,” Ramona allowed, “but we know where a dark fairy is.”

“Faybelle,” the group acknowledged.

~oOo~

“Hey guys!” Dexter called, waving from the top of the hill, pixies skipping down in front of him, and more people following behind. Cupid of course, Rosabella, Cedar, Blondie, Sparrow Nina Thumbelle, Farrah, Justine Dancer – Ramona's room mate – among others. In particular, there was someone who Ashlynn was particularly happy to see.

“Hunter!” she cried, and ran to him.

He caught her, and lifted her off her feet rather than let her momentum knock them both over, before embracing her.

“It was Jillian's beanstalk,” Hunter said.

“A few of us were able to sneak away from the school while Faybelle was out with the dragons,” Jillian explained. “And we caught up with a few others who'd gotten out early to hide in Book End.”

“We all decided to come here on the principal that, the further we were from the Evil Queen, the safer we'd be,” Rosabella added.

“Unfortunately, that's not completely true,” Ashlynn said sadly. “She got Apple.”

“What happened?” Nina asked.

“Forever After Sleep,” Hrafn said with a gesture towards where they'd set Apple. “Farrah, would you please help me get Daring back to his usual, princely, self? Or maybe even a step up from normal? He's got a damsel to wake up.”

“Sure,” Farrah agreed with a smile.

~oOo~

“This is it, Charming,” Daring said, alternately stretching out and pacing back and forth, giving himself a pep-talk as he did. “You have to wake your sleeping damsel with a kiss -” then the pep went right out of his pep-talk. “And then it's Happily Ever After from here on out! Oh, this is all happening to fast!”

Farrah hid a giggle behind one hand. Hrafn manfully resisted the urge to roll his eyes, though he shared a significant look with Darling when she joined them.

“How do I look? How's my hair?!” Daring asked.

“Come on, drama prince,” Darling said, and reached up to tweak his crown straight. “Let's go save Apple.”

Farrah had found a mouse to turn into a noble white charger for Daring to ride in on. It would have been cruel to leave the mouse permanently transformed, but just until noon? That was fine, especially as noon wasn't all that far away. Hrafn handled the saddle and the rest – and quickly banished the lot again once Daring had dismounted. It was a very short little ride, mostly for the look of the thing. Neither of them would be riding out on this mouse-horse when Apple woke up, not when there were dragons to ride.

Daring crossed the last bit of space between him and Apple to the cheering of their friends, and the pixies magically removed the glass cover from Apple's coffin.

“Apple White, you are my damsel, and I am your Prince Charming,” Daring proclaimed. “And now I will fulfil our destinies, and we shall live happily ever -” he placed a gentle, chaste kiss on Apple's lips. “- after.”

She didn't wake up.

Daring tried again, with a kiss to her cheek, and then a kiss to her hand, increasingly nervous as Apple still didn't wake. He backed away then with a fearful expression.

“Is something wrong?” Hrafn dared to ask.

“I'm... I'm not the prince of destiny,” Daring said. Though it sounded a little like a question, the way he said it, it definitely wasn't. “I'm not her Prince Charming!” he declared, then slumped and sulked away. Darling followed after to comfort him.

“What does this mean?” Cedar asked.

“She'll sleep until the right kiss wakes her,” Professor Badwolf supplied. “It's inherent in the poison that the Evil Queen uses for her poisoned apples. It just might take longer for that right person to show up than we all originally thought.” He huffed a sigh. “I have a feeling that the Headmaster isn't going to like this when he finds out.”

~oOo~

While Briar, Blondie, and Ashlynn organised a farewell service for Apple – since there was really no way of knowing how long her forever-after sleep would last before the right someone kissed her – Hrafn quietly slipped away from the recently enlarged group and towards the dragons. Plans and plots raced through his mind as he crept away, contingencies considered. Options were considered and discarded. Likelihoods and impossibilities were factored in, as was the incalculable human element. He could guess how people would react, but he couldn't know. Hrafn had good instincts for things, but the reason he liked mathematics, despite not being naturally gifted at it, was that it was perfectly predictable. As long as you had the formula right, then you'd get the right result. It could be very frustrating that people weren't so predictable.

It could also be wonderful. Being surprised by people wasn't always a bad thing. When he was relying on them to behave in certain ways though?

“Going somewhere?”

Hrafn turned from where he'd been saddling Nevermore and was confronted with Cerise, Ramona, and Professor Badwolf.

“A few places come to mind,” Hrafn admitted.

“Without me?” Cerise demanded.

Hrafn smiled and moved to take her hands in his.

“Option one, I can magically teleport into the Library of Elders, find the spell that was originally used to trap my mother, then sneak up behind her and use it,” Hrafn suggested.

“Good plan,” Cerise noted. “But you wouldn't be saddling Nevermore if that's what you were actually planning on doing.”

“She'd notice my magic as soon as I used it,” Hrafn admitted. “Option two, go and get my father and leave it to him to talk her down.”

“Which would take a while and might not even work,” Ramona pointed out.

Hrafn nodded. He'd already said as much himself.

“Option three,” Hrafn said, and took a deep breath. “Direct confrontation.”

“What?!” both sisters yelped.

“Explain your reasoning,” Professor Badwolf demanded, “and it had better be good.”

Hrafn pulled the Booking Glass out of his bag, and handed it to Cerise.

“I'm the distraction,” Hrafn explained. “I'm going to give the Evil Queen what she wants: me.”

“No, Hrafn!” Cerise denied.

“I'm not done hexplaining,” Hrafn comforted her. “Faybelle's been doing the Evil Queen's errands for her, and knowing my mother, she hasn't been properly appreciative. I show up and say I'll do whatever she wants, but only on the condition she leaves my friends alone, and my mother will be over the moon. So far as she's concerned, she has me where she wants me. I'll do what she says, because she's left me no other choice. She'll believe I've given in. Faybelle, on the other hand?”

“Not so much,” Romona guessed.

Professor Badwolf snorted at his eldest daughter's understatement. He might have been a Big Bad, but he was a good teacher, and good teachers knew their students.

“I'm betting on Faybelle deciding she wants revenge for how poorly the Evil Queen has treated her, how she's been taken advantage of,” Hrafn admitted. “We need a Dark Fairy to unlock the Booking Glass.”

“Then once it's unlocked, we'll be able to use it to capture your mother,” Cerise realised.

“That's the plan,” Hrafn said with a hopeful smile.

Cerise handed her sister the Booking Glass, and lunged up to wrap her arms around Hrafn's shoulders and neck.

“Be careful,” she whispered the order in his ear.

“As careful as I can be, I promise,” he answered as he held tight to her, arms around her waist, before he loosened his hold and let her slide gently to stand on the ground again.

~oOo~

“Hello, Hrafn,” the Evil Queen greeted, a smirk on her face and a hint of a pleased purr in her tone.

Hrafn frowned back, and kept one hand on Nevermore's flank after he'd dismounted.

“We,” he said firmly, “need to talk.”

“Of course, my dear,” his mother agreed, still smiling. “What did you want to talk about?”

“What would it take for you to leave Ever After High?” Hrafn said. He couldn't just come out with a 'you win', or 'I have decided to be evil'. As willing as his mother would be to believe he'd given in, if it was too easy, then she'd get suspicious that much faster. So, negotiation. He knew how it would end – he'd agree to be evil, to take over other lands with his mother, but she would first have to concede to sparing Ever After and all of his friends.

Neither one of them would make it easy. Hrafn, because he had his plan, and knew the image he had to project, even to his mother. The Evil Queen, because she wouldn't want to actually concede to giving up ruling over Ever After.

She would, to get him at her side. But it would have to be worked around to.

Of course, if the Evil Queen was going to give up Ever After, then she'd want everybody who attended to know exactly why – Hrafn, her son, had agreed to her terms. Hrafn was going to follow in her fairy tale footsteps, and become evil.

One demand he hadn't expected though, was that his mother wanted to be in charge of his wardrobe – he had to be dressed in a suitably evil style. His mother wasn't just an Evil Queen, she was an Evil Drama Queen. Hrafn narrowed his eyes at his mother and made the counter-demand that there would be no dresses or floor-length robes. He was her son, not her daughter. He'd put up with just about anything else, but no skirts, dresses, or supposedly masculine robes that actually were dresses but she'd just called them something else to try and trick him into them.

No.

He'd give her leave to mess with his hair, however long she wanted it and in whatever style, but never his trousers.

She proceeded to dress him up – with magic, of course – for her broadcast announcing their departure. There was a lot of black, tightly fitted leather, a lot of feathers, and of course an elaborate, silver crown on his head that had lots of spikes and bird skulls. From the slightly weighted feeling on his face, Hrafn had the unpleasant thought that he really should have stipulated no make-up as well as no dresses. Well, she knew he wasn't entirely happy even if he had (apparently) capitulated. It wouldn't hurt him at all for everybody to see how uncomfortable he was with the bargain he'd struck.

Especially if one of the people watching was Faybelle.

With the broadcast done, the Evil Queen moved on to the difficult task of deciding where to take over, since they were leaving Ever After.

“We could take another crack at Wonderland,” the Evil Queen suggested, “or we could conquer and rule over Gingerbread Land. Or, or! Hear me out now, the Land of the Giants!”

“Those all sound great,” Hrafn said, unenthusiastically. “I'll go wherever you want. As long as it's not here.”

“Oh, I'm too hexcited to pick,” the Evil Queen said, and wiped a proud tear (possibly even a real one, but just as likely not) from her eye. “My wicked little black bird has flown home!” With a gesture, Hrafn was magically dragged across the room and into his mother's arms. “Mother-son evil selfie!” she sang, and held up her mirror-phone to take a picture.

Hrafn didn't smile. Kind of hard to when his heavily made-up face was being smushed and his mother was making crazy-eyes at her mirror-phone. There was also their audience to consider.

“Oh my fairy godmother!” Faybelle yelled.

Ah, the sound of someone who had reached the end of their patience.

The Evil Queen lowered her mirror-phone.

“I've spent all this time fluttering around, doing your evil bidding without so much as a _thanks Faybelle, hex of a job_ , and now little mister _I'm gonna make my own destiny_ comes waltzing in and you actually believe he's going to be evil?!” Faybelle demanded, both dramatically and incredulously.

Hrafn watched his mother carefully. Faybelle was a friend, even if she had been fluttering after his mother pretty much ever since she'd revealed herself. He really didn't want to see Faybelle suffer some horrible fate at his mother's hand. He really, really hoped that the Evil Queen would keep it to just yelling and callous dismissal, since Faybelle had in fact served her so well. He was pretty sure she would, but his mother was the Evil Queen and she had been trapped in the Mirror Realm for quite some time. He had a fairly good idea of her mental state, but a lot was riding on his being right.

“Would you hexcuse us for a moment?” the Evil Queen said to him, all politeness, before she strode across to Faybelle and raised a barrier around the two of them. A sound-proof one, unfortunately. So Hrafn had no idea what either his mother or Faybelle were saying. Or rather, yelling. Judging by the gestures and their postures, they were definitely yelling at each other.

Then Faybelle was cowering, and the barrier was coming down.

“But, what about me?” Faybelle asked, a tremble in her voice.

“What about you?” the Evil Queen scoffed as she walked away from the fairy. Her tone derisive and mocking, making it clear that Faybelle was beneath her consideration. The sharply manicured hand that landed on Hrafn's shoulder and turned him back to the conjured screen covered in pictures of other lands, just waiting to be conquered, made it equally clear exactly who did have all of the Evil Queen's consideration. “Now, where were we?” she asked. “Oh! What about the Sea Kingdom? We could rule over the mer-folk!”

Hrafn managed to peek an apologetic expression over his shoulder at Faybelle, whose wings were drooping and lower lip trembling.

“We could get paddle boats!” the Evil Queen suggested happily, unaware that as she said that, Faybelle was scrubbing the tears out of her eyes before they could fall, squaring her shoulders, and discarding the little bag of borrowed magic.

Hrafn watched out of the corner of his eye as an angry Faybelle flew out of the castle.


	22. Chapter 22

Hrafn's mirror-phone was on silent, but he felt it vibrate when he got a hext. It was from Cerise. Faybelle had shown up, unlocked the Booking Glass, and they were on their way. He knew he shouldn't, but Hrafn drifted over to the open side of the ruined Headmaster's Office, where he and Nevermore had landed not so long ago, and began hopefully searching the skies for his friends.

Nevermore joined him there not long after.

His mother was distracted with packing still, but that probably wouldn't last much longer. Not if he stayed where he was, not if he kept on paying any amount of attention to anything other than The Evil Queen.

“... and we'll need some dragon tears, a little dark fairy dust, my dark robe – oh! And my other dark robe,” she happily listed as she piled things into the arms of the impossibly obedient body of Snow White.

The woman herself was currently occupying the body of a snake in a terrarium on a shelf, along with most of the other school staff. Headmaster Grimm and Professor Rumplestiltskin were both frogs. The Evil Stepsisters were snails. Giles Grimm was a lizard. Madame Yaga and Professor Piper were both mice. So on it went.

“Almost finished packing!” the Evil Queen called over, and then noticed. “Why are you doing that?”

“Doing what?” Hrafn asked.

“Staring ominously into the distance,” his mother clarified. “What are you looking for?”

“Nothing. I was thinking about Dad, actually,” Hrafn deflected, and now that he'd said it, he was thinking about his father. “Do you think he'd be proud, or disappointed in me?” he asked, and reached a hand up to feel the pointed spikes of the crown his mother had conjured onto his head.

For a long, tense moment, the Evil Queen said nothing. Did nothing. Her husband was a touchy subject for the Evil Queen. As much as Hrafn's parents loved each other – and he knew they did, despite everything – there really was no telling the Evil Queen's reaction to the Good King being mentioned in her presence.

A person had better chances at guessing which side of a flipped coin would land face-up.

“Whether your father would be proud of you or not doesn't matter,” the Evil Queen finally decided, a scowl on her face. “You're on the path to become evil now, dear.”

“Yes, Mother,” Hrafn said with a sigh. “I know.”

“Prove it,” the Evil Queen demanded suddenly, and shot a bolt of magic at another wall. Rather than destroying the wall, it coalesced into a swirling magical portal. “Toss Snow White and those teachers into the void,” she commanded.

“Could I start with a frog that's actually a frog, and work my way up to a person that's been turned into one?” Hrafn requested with a flinch and a grimace.

“No,” the Evil Queen answered bluntly. “You've been doing very well in your Villainy classes, Hrafn. Don't start flinching now that we're moving on from theory to practicals.”

“And the fact that I like some of my teachers?” Hrafn asked. “Some of these teachers?” he emphasised pointedly, with a gesture to the terrariums that held Madame Yaga and Professor Piper in particular. He had, after all, managed to get his favourite teacher out before he was turned into any more of an animal than he already was.

The Evil Queen sighed and rolled her eyes, as though greatly put upon.

“Must every step we take with your education towards evil be a negotiation?” she demanded with a frustrated sigh. “If,” she began, “I allow you to release one teacher, then you must throw another into the void.”

Hrafn started doing quick calculations in his head. He could release Madame Yaga, and then he'd have her magical ability on side to help him capture his mother. He could release Professor Piper, and he might be able to control his mother with some Melodic Manipulation. He could -

“But you must throw Snow White into the void first,” the Evil Queen decreed, “before I allow you to release anyone.”

Hrafn's hopeful plans crashed to a screeching halt. He wasn't friends with Apple. He didn't much care about Snow White one way or the other. He couldn't do it though. Not even those he considered enemies were acceptable collateral damage when his mother decreed their harm. Never mind people who he was, at best, indifferent towards.

He threw a blasting spell at his mother. The same spell that Courtly had used when she'd been trying to overthrow the Queen of Hearts in Wonderland, in fact. Without the incantation though. It really wouldn't be sensible to give the Evil Queen that much warning of incoming attack.

The gathering of magical fire in his hand, and the motion to throw it, turned out to be quite warning enough. She blocked it.

“Nice try, birdie,” she said with a dark chuckle as she dismissed Hrafn's spell, “but I'm much more powerful than you!” she said, magenta fire gathering over her own hand. At least the magical portal leading to a void of her creation was no longer an issue.

Hrafn couldn't catch his mother's magic in his hand and dismiss it, but she had given him enough time to raise a shield spell between them, which her blasting spell exploded upon, leaving him unharmed if blinking spots out of his eyes from the clash of purple and magenta magic. He wasn't entirely sure that he'd have said the Evil Queen was more powerful than he was, but she was definitely more experienced. He hadn't had nearly as much time as she had, to obtain such perfect control over her magic.

“I know you're just doing this to save all your little friends out there,” the Evil Queen said, her voice reverberating with depth and darkness as she floated on her magic over the smoke, and created a barrier around Hrafn.

Trapping him.

Nevermore made herself as big as she could get, and spread her wings, a growling, protective guardian between Hrafn and the Evil Queen.

With a gesture shrouded in pink flames, the Evil Queen put a collar around Nevermore's neck, and dragged her away to anchor her near the edge with thick, heavy cables.

Nevermore yelped in pain.

“Nevermore!” Hrafn called after her, concerned more for his dragon than for himself in that moment. He was unharmed, after all.

“You may not be evil now, Hrafn,” the Evil Queen said as she stalked over to him, in full view now that the smoke from the explosion caused by their colliding spells had cleared. “But mark my words. You. Will. Learn!” she declared, magenta fireballs of magic held up in both hands as she loomed threateningly over him from the other side of her own magical barrier.

Just then, there was a draconic screech that was too distant to be Nevermore, or any of the four boy dragons that the Evil Queen had magicked under her control. Mother and son both turned to see what it was.

“Huh,” Hrafn said softly when he recognised the dragon that was in the lead. “Someone must have managed to wake up Apple.”

“Yes,” the Evil Queen agreed thoughtfully as she stalked over to the edge of the crumbling floor and destroyed wall. “And it seems somebody showed her how to use the Booking Glass.”

Faybelle wasn't keeping a low profile then. Hrafn couldn't quite see clearly who was riding the dragons, trapped away from the edge as he was. He could just see the dragons themselves, and had to guess based on who he knew their riders were.

“You!” the Evil Queen said, and it had the tone of realisation and accusation. “You were behind this. You played on Faybelle's jealousies and tricked her into joining your friends,” she accused, turning back to Hrafn and looming over him again.

Hrafn really wanted that last growth-spurt to kick in. Failing that, he was pretty sure that if his mother was forced to wear shoes without heels, then he'd at least the same height. Well, hair not included. His mother's hair style added a couple more feet.

“You manipulative little chip off the old glass slipper,” she said, suddenly pleased as she swanned away and vanished her skirts in favour of her dragon-riding wear. “It takes a truly wicked mind to concoct a scheme like that. Oh, you have so much potential!” she crowed. The Evil Queen had one last parting shot. “It's too bad I have to go destroy your friends now,” she said with a sigh and a smirk. “Spell you later!”

Hrafn watched his mother jump off the edge, just the same way Snow White had at that Dragon Sport demonstration. Only this time it was Flaxen that rose with the Evil Queen on his back. He frowned as he watched them go, just for a moment, and then set to freeing himself from his mother's containment spell.

“Hrafn, please help us!” Giles the Lizard called from his terrarium.

“He can't do it,” Headmaster Grimm the Frog denied. “He doesn't have the strength.”

“You underestimate me, Headmaster,” Hrafn said as he broke through the barrier, and got rid of his mother's fashion choices while he was at it. It felt really good to have that make up off his face, and his own dragon-proof armour back on. “You underestimate me a rather lot,” he added before he ran over to Nevermore and freed her from his mother's horrible shackle.

It was time to join the fight.

~oOo~

Hrafn and Nevermore trailed Basil first, which was easy since Maddie had just bonked him on the head with a fire extinguisher. After that, they flew past Melody and Blondie (the latter of whom was reporting from dragon-back) and went after Merlot and Spice, freeing each of them from the ice covering their heads as well his mother's spells. One at a time, of course. The two red-accented dragons had been chasing Legend, and apparently Darling had brought her dragon to the rescue. There would be no way to free Flaxen while the Evil Queen was riding him. For now though, the only dragon still a danger to Hrafn's friends was Flaxen. That meant that no one had to worry about distracting the other dragons, defending the school, or any of that. They were all able to devote their attention just to hassling the Evil Queen.

“No!” Apple's distressed cry echoed through the skies.

Hrafn and Nevermore headed for her, and more to the point, for the Evil Queen.

“Now I'm going to let all your friends see what it's like to spend one hundred years in the mirror realm, starting with you!” the Evil Queen declared, Booking Glass in hand, as she used it to point at Apple. “Capture -”

Hrafn's spell ripped it out of his mother's hand before she could finish, earning a frustrated scowl that became an almost-proud smirk when she realised just who had cast the spell.

“Somebody's been practising!” she said, using a sort of sing-song tone that could have been proud or mocking. Considering who it was, probably both at the same time.

Either way, Hrafn and Nevermore were too intent on the falling Booking Glass to give his mother's words much attention. They shot down, their sharp angle slicing between Evil Queen and Apple White. With a grunt of victory, Hrafn caught the mirror. Now he just had to catch his mother, and it would all be over and done with. Happily Ever After.

No warning. No hesitation.

“Capture my mother,” Hrafn ordered, Booking Glass held firmly and pointed at the Evil Queen, and just a little bit of his magic added for extra oomph, so that the power of the Booking Glass could cut through any shield spell she might conjure up to save herself from being returned to the Mirror Realm.

“No!” her cry echoed and reverberated as she was dragged in, but Hrafn had caught her enough by surprise that she went, unable to fight it.

Hrafn breathed a sigh of relief, and directed Nevermore to carry him up to Flaxen. He wanted to make sure that his mother's spell on the dragon was dissipated with her capture. It might not have automatically happened. The school was still floating a mile up in the air. He was going to need to fix that. Neither Farrah nor Faybelle were really equipped to undo that kind of damage, not with their kinds of magic, and they were the next-strongest students after him, magically speaking.

For all that fixing things of this magnitude was normally something left to adults, Madame Yaga was the most magically powerful and knowledgeable among the staff, with the Brothers Grimm a couple of yard-sticks behind. But none of them were in any position to do the fixing this time. Besides, it was his mother's handiwork. He felt a little obligated.

“Is it over?” Apple asked.

“Almost,” Hrafn answered, and he scanned the skies for Melody and Blondie. When he spotted them, he directed Nevermore to take him up to where they were circling with the mirror-pad recording the live action. “Blondie!” he called, and waved for her attention.

“Hrafn! Has the Evil Queen been captured?” Blondie called back.

“Yeah! Can you use your mirror-cast to tell everybody in the school to hang on to something? I'm gonna put the school back to rights!”

“Right!”

~oOo~

Just as Hrafn landed Nevermore after returning the school to ground-level and repairing all the damage his mother had caused, a modest but well-polished dark-blue car pulled up in front of Ever After High, and a man with a greying beard and bright blue eyes stepped out of it.

“Hrafn!” the blue-eyed man called.

Hrafn turned sharply in the saddle, and his eyes widened in his face when he saw who was calling his name.

“Dad!” he answered, and hurriedly dismounted before running over. He just about crashed into his father when he reached him, wrapping his arms tightly and gratefully around the Good King, as his father easily returned the embrace. Hrafn felt strong arms give his shoulders a warm squeeze.

“I saw the mirror-casts,” the Good King said softly, “and I got here as fast as I could. Are you alright?”

“I am now,” Hrafn promised. “She's trapped in the mirror realm again. We're all safe. I even just finished fixing up the school,” he added.

“I saw the school being fixed,” the Good King acknowledged with a proud smile. “It was very impressive, and I'm proud of you.”

“You... you are?” Hrafn asked, and jerked back to look into his father's face, surprised.

“Why wouldn't I be?” the Good King asked with a fond chuckle.

“You said you saw the mirror-casts,” Hrafn said, “I figured that meant the one where I, well...”

“Let your mother think she'd won?” the Good King suggested archly. “I know you've been enjoying your Villainy classes, Hrafn, but I also know that you enjoy them because they challenge you mentally. Not because you enjoy the thought of making other people suffer at all.”

“Mother called me a manipulative little chip off the old glass slipper,” Hrafn admitted. “I owe Faybelle an apology for that.”

“And you'll give it, but your mother never did understand that being Good wasn't always the same as being Nice. Being Good means sometimes making the tough choices, even when you know that no matter what you do, your choices will hurt someone. So, yes,” the Good King said, and pulled Hrafn back into a warm hug. “I'm proud of you. You did Good, son.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Well, since I'm here, I suppose I should say hello to Milton and Giles, and I should definitely meet some of your friends, hm?” the Good King suggested.

Hrafn smiled.

“Sounds great, Dad,” he agreed.

“Ah, well, there's Milton and Giles now,” the Good King said as he scanned the crowd. “I'll go get the pleasantries out of the way, you go tell your friends I'd like to meet them, and I'll find you wherever Nevermore is.”

Hrafn nodded agreement, and with one last hug, father and son parted.

~oOo~

Hrafn had intended to grab as many of his friends as he could. The simple explanation of _my dad showed up and wants to meet my friends_ would definitely have them coming along without any protest. He'd told his friends who both of his parents were, after all, and while Maddie had been quite right to say “Yay, the Evil Queen's here – said no one ever!”, the Good King was a different matter.

Before he got far in looking for them though, Cerise found him. She greeted him thoroughly too, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and kissing him where everybody could see.

“Wow,” Hrafn said, a little breathless, when they parted. At some point during that kiss, his arms had wrapped around Cerise's waist and lifted her just a tiny bit off the ground. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Cerise answered back. “So, do you think you kept your promise?”

“I might have been a little bit reckless?” Hrafn suggested thoughtfully, “but it was a calculated kind of reckless. I was as careful as I could be.”

“Alright then,” Cerise allowed. “Let's not need to fight any more Evil Queens too soon though, okay?”

“I'll do my best,” Hrafn agreed happily. “How about meeting Good Kings, though?”

“What?” Cerise asked, and blinked her big grey eyes up at him.

“My dad saw Blondie's mirror-cast, got here as fast as he could, even without me calling him for backup,” Hrafn said with a smile. “He wants to meet my friends. I think he should definitely meet my girlfriend, hmm?”

“Oh my fairy godmother...” Cerise said as her arms slid down from around Hrafn's neck and shoulders so that her palms rested on his chest.

~And They Lived Happily Ever After~

_Thanks to Chaos Babe who wrote this bit, which with their permission, I'm tacking onto the end of the chapter so that everyone can read it. It makes me wish I had thought to do this. Truly brilliant. Thanks again, Chaos Babe! – all following, word for word, what Chaos Babe sent me:_

Not going to lie, I have this scene bunny floating in my head of Apple, awakened years after all her friends are aged and gone:  
  
She turned the pages of the Yearbook listlessly, tears pooling at each ‘perfect’ picture she encountered. There was nothing in these pages to show who they’d been. Darling wasn’t the fierce yet kind White Knight, just another vapid Charming Princess. Her fingers trembled as she clutched the last page. This was all she had left of her friends and classmates. Apple didn’t know why she had thought this would help. She’d ruined everything trying for a Happily Ever After, and she didn’t even have true memories left of them left. Her eyes slipped closed as she turned the final page. They blinked open again in surprise when her finger bumped into another page.  
  
She slammed a hand to her mouth, tears spilling down her cheeks. Dexter was midfall into the pond, Hafrn yelping as he was dragged down. Page after page of pictures she’d never wanted to include, every person’s true character shining through. Her heart pounded in her chest as she traced her finger down her own face, blackened by some hexplosion in Potions.  
  
“Oh, Hafrn,” she whispered. “You always fixed what I messed up.”


End file.
